On the black and white TV,
we watched silently, as an American
soldier fell into a field of static
like he was falling fast asleep,
tumbling down the screen,
out of sync with the signal,
dropping one horizontal line at a time.
Then, someone’s daughter
came running out to us
with her arms raised. They called her
the Little Napalm Girl
because she burned with Napalm’s
invisible fire. She looked to be
exactly my age at the time, caught
on the camera in this first war, televised.
My dad didn’t want me to see her,
but I memorized her face,
her upside down mouth
on the other side of the world.
Her skin stretched across her shoulders
like an outgrown dress on a hanger,
hung from the metal rod of her spine.
Oh, I know I am not you
Kim Phuc Pan Thi, so how
could I know what it was like
to be a little napalm girl?
In my closet hung a homemade poncho
my mother had sewn for me,
swaying in psychedelic colors,
with little pink pom pom bombs.
Make love not war was written
all over the terry cloth,
in pink, black, and orange letters,
colors of a girl scout fire.
The words PEACE and LOVE
blazed across my chest
for all of time, but for her,
there was only the naked, cold eye
of a camera, and a still shot
photo that went on
to win a Pulitzer Prize.
She ran into my living room,
into the home of the already free.
I sat cross legged on the floor and watched
as soldiers poured their canisters
of water on her skin. The smocking
of my dress tightened across my chest,
each quick breath pulled me
further inward, until I ran with her,
our hearts on opposite sides
of the screen, but square
between our collarbones.
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