(Phayvanh Luekhamhan was born in Champasak, Laos in 1975. She is a Juried Artist with the Vermont Arts Council. She has been writing poetry for performances and exhibits throughout New England for over ten years. You can visit her at Phayvanh .)

I.C.U.
My fingers clutched
in futility the flesh
we cursed the blood
that would not flow there.
Your toes the size
of dime-store pearls
were fat with fluid
and black as the night
I birthed you.
We talked I recall
of everyday things--
as if you were already
barefoot on the porch
brushing a doll and
I was squat shelling peas

Boys.
In a crowded jeep, bouncing along an old dirt road:

- Man, I didn’t bring my gear.  You never know these out-of-town parties, you know?
- I hate my mom, man, she’s always buggin’.
- Hey, don’t worry about it, man.
- I hear with these pellet guns that are more powerful than the .22…
- that’s what I got, a .22.
- Probably won’t even kill a man.
- Yeah, like five shots to the head to kill someone--
- no, one really good shot to the head would kill someone.
- Man, what if you shot someone in the stomach?
(chuckles)
- That’d be freaky.  Especially if he was all drunk and shit. 
Blood everywhere, going,
“What the …?”
He wouldn’t even know he got shot.
- But man, if I shot someone, it’s be to kill man.
- You left it at home, right?

Afghanistan
they could have been borders
blue lines smudged across yellow
my words, gin-induced scrawls, petitioned to cross

was it tears or saliva
that undid the ink and split the sky apart?
those torn envelopes under your mat

tonight’s letter a plea against the riflepoint
of your absence--I’d wanted something
an echo across the stretch of haunted sand

escape from dreams that volleyed
like the pellets outside your tent
whose dark and fine

folded wings you dove through
in the high cry of wind whistling
a song on your open back

girl on the platform meditating
you wore the smog-filtered sun
as robes for contemplation

shoulders pressed into concrete
in dark perfect smiles your drawn lids

your squat body hummed
like the oncoming train

slick briefcases blurred past you,
coffee in steel mugs

sweat-stained newsprint
all the reckless chatter of that kind

you in your New York black
you with the turn-down cap

you subdued the sounds of them
with each subsonic breath