White Pig, Dark Pig

I didn’t rape the women, didn’t lust

for their dark flesh not like you think.  I dreamed

of food, not sex.  A man does what he must

to live.  I ate dark breasts and brains.  It seemed

normal, almost.  I met some soldiers near

the camp.  They carried a cooked human arm

from a white pig (that is, a prisoner

from the West).  They were lucky, with a farm

of endless white pigs to roast up.  But we

had to track down the dark ones hiding, and

we starved.  At last we drew lots, and the one

who lost we’d eat.  The loser tried to flee.

He’d been my friend.  I shot him with my gun,

then wept.  I got his leg and his left hand.

                 (Japanese Soldier, New Guinea, 1942-1944)

Home Brew

He never drank a lick before the war

but he came back a fall-down drunk.  He said

they’d cook up home brew from potatoes or

from fruit and then get bombed among the dead.

He started slapping me around, and changed

to someone moaning to himself at night,

oh God, oh Mom, a silent man, deranged

inside, his spirit bottled up.  One night

last year I woke up with his hands around

my throat.  His mouth was moving.  He was dreaming.

I thumbed him in the eyes till he came round

and when he understood he broke down weeping.

He put his medals in a box.  It’s done,

he said, and got a drink.  It wasn’t done.

               (Woman, Evansville, Indiana)