Kentucky Briar April 1975
Matthew Hamilton



Huddled nurses spooled in white
on a cracked sleet morning
holding Winston 100s
with uneasy hands

mothers all of them
their eyes bent to the east
mourning their sons
ten thousand miles away
in the syrupy rice fields
of Xuan Loc

and me
newly born
nested in warm arms
and a jungle of blankets.

I arrived too late
to take a rifle
in my hands
and erase
what my mother
never had to imagine:

me in a rice field
cheek by jaw
with my brother
our lives underneath
gurgling mud.

About the author:
Matthew Hamilton is a former Soldier, Congressional Aide, US Peace Corps Volunteer, and Benedictine Monk. He holds a Master of Fine Arts from Fairfield University and is a three time Pushcart Prize nominee. His chapbook, The Land of the Four Rivers, published by Cervena Barva Press, won the 2013 Best Poetry Book from Peace Corps Writers. He is currently the Librarian at Benedictine College Preparatory, an all-male, Catholic Military high school in Richmond, VA.