Sidewalk faces and breakfast hips

pull my stomach down, spread a tightness

through my chest having nothing

to do with heart.

This ache is a memory of not-knowing,

not-thinking at least, of anything but skin

and the way hair falls; it's the distance

of a decade between two tables, the length

of a glassine smile.

When Berlin dropped the wall, I was trying to drop

someone's pants, the news as present as technicolor

static. Never mind freedom; I had been free

for twenty-one years.

Free to eat and lick

and be licked and twisted,

free to lean from one foot

to the other and call it dancing.

Free to straddle sugar until my whispers

emptied the patio

where I sit now and watch the buildings,

the meters, pipes and wires. I try to see them charred

and broken; I can only focus on a one story flag

over beer and darts, the open door where conversation

tumbles out like giddy propaganda.

Laughter isn't enough, is it, when the world

ends? The cure for alone isn't a wrinkled

nose or the face you still see when streets burn.

A fender lean kiss won't taste

away the bitter swallow of black,

flag-draped truth.

"My first American," she smiles, stretching

out of my twisted sheets. I salute

again, half-mast and limp

in a wind that blows

from Inchon across a black-gray

curl along her cheek.

She's from the most dangerous

place in the world

and I'm as safe as denim. In quiet

minutes, conquest is turned upside

down, beautifully.