Hey, Sloan said, /
there’s a Cobra down in the river. /
He ducked into the bunker for binoculars. /
I squinted across the valley at the Ba Long. /
Olive motion on jungle green, /
a gunship wheeled, /
hung nodding at a point on the far ridgeline, /
circled to clear profile above the horizon, /
then dropped toward a blob in the river.

Sometimes they say / “I knew something was wrong / when she was standing at the foot of my bed / and said to me, / ‘I’ll be fine. I love you’” / And then I woke up / and knew it was a dream.