Summary

In “Bullethead for Earthell” the speaker begins by saying they do not know what the soul mutters in the moment before death. They then introduce their grandfather, who died during an ambush in Vietnam. “In the moment before death/none of the moments before that,/I know, bear the same risks” they say before meditating on what exactly constitutes the moment of death, saying it “must be abstract/as dream, pure theory” (73). The poem ends with the speaker reflecting once more on their grandfather, and how when they asked their own father, who was absent from the majority their life for presumably different reasons, to recall his face, “there was nothing/but smoke coaxing our history from his breath” (74).

“Support the Troops!” is a poem in which the speaker responds to a request to support the troops. They begin by saying, “I’m...