"Words' Worth" Poetry Readings
Poets at the Culture, Arts, and Parks Committee
of the Seattle City Council.
Kim Phuc, Found Poem, Veterans Day, 1996.
by Allison Durazzi
These burns, they are not so new now.
Sometimes, I am looking in the mirror
and think I am looking at the heat waving
up my arm and my back, my flesh curling
like tsunami into a napalm shoreline.
I throw my clothes into dust.
I scream , "Too hot! Too hot!"
God's blessing was balm on my skin,
and I am so lucky, lucky. Others died.
My brothers died. I have these scars.
I have my husband, my son,
and when the pain cramps across my face,
and some memory scorches in my eyes,
they tell me stories to forget.
These burns are not so new.
Now, in my house,
I am always laughing, smiling, smiling.
(A famous AP photo during the Viet Nam War shows Kim Phuc,
then age 9, running, naked, toward the camera after her village was napalmed.)
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