I still carry my grandfather’s

German plane bullet in my asthmatic lung

When he flew his best friend’s head home

In his lap

He was hailed a hero and promptly

                                                           served a pint

But never stopped drinking;

Got too drunk to talk to anyone

Cracked his head

On the unforgiving sidewalk

Of post-war Nebraska

Met a beautiful actress

Fell in love to Shakespeare

Took up pretending

Kept on drinking

Was dazzled by warm stage light

And sweaty makeup, applause

Only to find the theatre dark and desolate

Dotted with crumpled wax paper cups

He got bitter and he got T.B.

He got drunk. A lot.

God knows what he’d done

But my grandmother had to lay him flat

On the linoleum kitchen floor

With a cast-iron skillet

1949. A two-year-old over her shoulder.

Headed for Arkansas.

I carry his tubercles in my lungs

Along with the bullet and an apology

And a Shinto prayer booklet half the

                                                      size of my palm

Pulled off the body of a dead Jap

                                                   soldier at Kohima

I will not sleep until it is returned to his family.

His family knows he was not a monster;

He was a poor boy who got a yellow note

Sent on the cruel enterprise of

                                   conquest in others’ names

My ancestors roll in their graves as I speak

The dull pain of the 20 caliber Mauser

        bullet in my lung rattles and I cough blood

My step-grandfather picks gravel

                          out of his pizza as he shuns me

My grandmother lowers her eyes away

                                                from the shop floor

Where I am below her sitting indian

                                         style with autoworkers.