Dismembered
(Persona of veteran Lashawn Linton, who assaulted an air force recruiter at the 125th St recruiting office)
“Air force recruiter leaving work was brutally stabbed by a crazed woman in Harlem yesterday.”
Field reporters never tell the whole story
when its complicated, like how blown off
arms and legs of bodies
spray wings of
blood and fly
away
from them.
No ceremoniously folded flag
or factory made purple heart
will make the families of the ones
who didn’t make it back
in even partial living pieces
see honor sitting in their dinner table’s empty chair.
“Lashawn Linton the 28 year old suspect - served in the Air Force, according to her father.”
No reporters asked me what happened.
Why an air force veteran turned on her own,
just mention my weekly therapy appointment,
like half this damn city
don’t rely on therapy
to get by.
These fuckin’ low budget veteran therapy appointments
can’t begin to sop up the dead bodies flooding tsunami-like
in my sleep, or while idle on the subway,
or at the sight of my father cheffing my favorite home-cooked
meal, my face turning some camouflage color of green,
the woman who slept on the bunk below me
comes apart at the stomach, the skin of her torso
splays all open in a smile full of worms,
skin curling back, peeling until there are lips…
“Staff Sgt. Sara Charles, 27, of The Bronx, was walking from the recruiting center on 125th Street
at 1 p.m. when she was approached by Lashawn.”
for a second, all I can hear
is not the bullet curling up in the blanket
of my left thigh’s flesh,
not even her voice’s hoarse dying,
the dulling of it rising over her terror like quicksand
as we realize she will not be
sewn back together in time
to be bunk buddies
another night,
just the slithering sound of moist innards
moving snake-like to escape her body
pierces the thick film of shock
clogging my synaptic passageways,
as I watch her.
“Sources said Linton, who had just left her therapist's office,
apparently didn't like the way Charles looked at her and…”
When I saw her with 2 teenage boys outside that recruiting office,
my gut gurgled at her lips curling outward
sweet talking GI Jo patchwork personas
for those boys to paper doll themselves into,
they could have been
my cousins, my brother,
high school boyfriend
or best friend.
I know what a family is like when the child they
gifted to the war - teaming with life -
comes back a lemon of a body and mind,
the piercing look of devastation that eclipses
a parent’s face when first met
with their veteran son or daughter
“…the two began to exchange words, the suspect then whipped out a knife.
An eye witness said Lashawn then plunged it into the eight-year veteran's chest, stomach and leg.”
they entrusted the love of their lives with,
returning to them only
jalopied remains,
no explanation
will ever be
good enough.
When I saw that recruiter’s finger-nailed grin,
smooth with the talk of patriotism
tongue slithering out intestine-like
exposed for all its grotesqueness,
my belly started kicking out at her as if
wanting to rip itself open,
show her what she will be
responsible for when another
doesn’t come home.
My hand gliding through the air with the
rhythm of post-traumatic hysteria
for all the mothers and fathers who wake up
every morning from nightmares so vividly repulsive,
visions of the constellation of wounds their children became
under the middle eastern sky,
the wind working to make them
a new skin, patching wounds
with sand to stop
the bleeding,
mother nature the
only attendant before
their body’s nightfall.
no matter how pretty this government packages
cheap metal poorly painted purple,
no manufactured honor can fill
the chairs at kitchen tables
for families of the dead.
“Linton was charged with attempted murder.”
*****
Below are pictures from Charan's dazzling featured performance @ The Inspired Word.
Poet/Educator/Performer Charan P. Morris @ Mike Geffner Presents The Inspired Word
Thursday, Feb. 3 (along with spoken word legend Taalam Acey)
One and One, Nexus Lounge
Manhattan, New York City
Photos By: Holly Van Voast
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