Historical Note
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Fukuoka
Prison hospital, Thailand, 1942
Flies buzz in the heavy heat
Rounding and dipping at my pursed lips
But I’m too feeble to resist them.
They’re warm and tickle-footed in the corners of my eyes.
Relentless black energy in a room of weariness.
Mother, I want to put down the load.
I raise myself onto my elbows
For a few seconds
Late in the afternoon
And take in the length of my body.
Light falls through the leaves outside.
I’m patch-worked.
Spindly legs lie in parallels
To the foot of my stretcher
And I cry because I’m so thin
And filthy.
Tropical ulcers.
O Mother,