Don't Make Me Talk
E. Martin Pedersen

​
​Don't make me talk
about what happened
back then like
ice on water
I want to break it
for the thrill
but it's better
not to puddle stomp
on a lake top
so it can't suck me in
to the deep freeze
under the ice ceiling
the towers coming down
Kennedy's brains
that naked Vietnamese girl
running from wasps at summer camp
Zimbabwe in love and grenades
a reverend’s touch, prison
tropical diseases, cancer
abandoning booze by the roadside
the war, my war
the move, my move
what my wife did and/or said and/or felt and
how my girl clung to my neck
before I left for good.
please don't make me talk about that
please
it wouldn't do no good.