I just tripped on bamboo in Trung’s backyard.
It snapped, not too loud, but loud enough
for him to catch me. We’re eleven, playing “VC”
with his four brothers. VC is like Tag,
but if you’re “it,” you have to pretend
to be the Viet Cong. It’s my turn
to be the Viet Cong, but first Trung wants
to tell me something broken and jungledark.
His brothers’ laughter betrays their hiding places.
I don’t have the heart to find them.

Trung tells me about his sister wailing,
looking back home, looking ready to turn into salt;
about their father’s slap on her cheek
followed by a caress on the red spot.
The seasick boat rocks and awaits them.
The latenight air is chilly.

Half of Trung’s brothers have peed themselves.
I’m the Viet Cong, and I can almost smell it.
Ten years later, Trung and I smoke some strong
stinky weed together on break from our different
colleges, and I lose him in the haze. I look
on Facebook and in the phone book.
I’ll never find him.

–Tom C. Hunley,
Scotch Tape World
Accents Publishing

More from Scotch Tape World and Tom C. Hunley:

• “At the Afterlife Bar and Grill”
• “Another Dream of Falling”
• “Um”
• Tom C. Hunley’s “Most Important Thing”
• “Having Banished the Musicians” from Bigger than They Appear

Tom C. Hunley is an associate professor of English at Western Kentucky University and the director of Steel Toe Books. Among his previous books are The Poetry Gymnasium (McFarland & Company, Inc., 2012); Annoyed Grunt (Imaginary Friend Press, 2012); Greatest Hits (Pudding House, 2010, Gold Invitational Series); Octopus (Logan House, 2008, Winner of the Holland Prize); Teaching Poetry Writing: A Five-Canon Approach (Multilingual Matters LTD., 2007, New Writing Viewpoints Series); My Life as a Minor Character (Pecan Grove, 2005, winner of a national chapbook contest); Still, There’s a Glimmer (WordTech Editions, 2004); and The Tongue (Wind Publications, 2004). He divides his time between Kansas and Oz.