PoetryJuly 29, 2019

Two Poems

“Now you’re learning / the enemy’s language. Nothing / special. Just the everyday // conjugations of your body’s verbs: / I burn, I live, I leave, / I burned, I lived, I left, / I will burn, I will live, I will leave“: In “Contact Sheet For Kim Phúc” and “Semi-[idio][auto]matic,” Deborah Paredez seeks a sufficient language for America’s war in Vietnam and its nearly endless aftermath.