Chu Lai's Dusty Bone

At the utmost end of Chu Lai
where the dusty bone of Highway One
left the tin roofed shacks, clotted like arterial plaque 
along the road's edge, at the farthest out, at the most removed,
at the last shack on the left was a leathery man.
Buffed and polished by time, his cheekbones gleamed
like the knob end of a favorite cane and
inside he offered a chair.
"You want coke? Beer? Very cold! I get girl.
Very hot! You sit. You sit," and he
pushed  through a bead curtain
leaving me the silence.


Wood smoke and a bubbling rice pot
perfumed the air and the scent of Dial drifted
out of the cracks in my fatigues
while I sat and listened to the dust settling
and to the booming of my pulse
as my cock thickened in the heat like a
tropical root and  anticipation 
popped sweat in my bristly hair for I 
had  fallen for war's fleshy candy,
caramel colored compensation,
my soul's wages.


She came and I offered money and
she led me to a lashed together
bamboo bed in a room where light bounced
and danced on the tin roof's underbelly
tossed there by water in a basin resting on the floor,
a  bright mirror into which I caught myself looking
while I stood the rifle I had sworn
not to carry next to 
the helmet grown too heavy
to wear.


Mesmerized, my eyes must be torn away
from my reflection to hold her
where she lay on the rush covered bed,
one foot, bare, resting on the ground,
black satin pants pooling around that ankle,
ink poured to settle the dust,
the other foot resting on the bed, her knee
up, rocking idly, its shadow
raising and lowering a curtain over her
scantily haired Venus Mound, 
her shirt still buttoned to the throat, her
head turned away, toward the light, her
arm thrown across her eyes, palm up flaunting
fish belly  white underflesh streaked,
like everything was then, with dirt.


My metal belt buckle clattered against
the course floor, my pants settling
green as mossy pond water around my boots
while I knelt in the dust before her, 
my prayer  roaring in my ears
like the silence between stuttering rifle shots
and my penis brushed her coral lips.
Her body spasmed as if I'd used
a bayonet while I plunged ahead with
the bargain we had made.


Later,
hearing a sound from her unmoved body,
I leaned forward to catch
what she had said
and a drop of sweat splashed
on her arm still shielding 
her eyes.


I  watched as it ate a path 
through the dirt there,
 saw her quiver 
 as if it had been 
aqua regia.