CALLING CARD

Left on the green helmet of a young jarhead

Drafted into walking point, leading the platoon through a jungle

Far from the world of skyscrapers he’d known;

Left on the body of a villager

Walking home, but never made it there,

Gunned down, given the misnomer “V.C.”;

Left on the ground in a village

Already fragged, many

Dead residents everywhere—

When the Vietnamese

Saw it, they feared it:

Death’s calling card.

Pictorial gesture

Field commander approved. Meaning:

“Warning: American killers are near.”

Big black spade with two “A”s.

How the military measured

Success in the field—

Left in the driver’s seat

Of a car abandoned

In a Denver parking lot,

Death’s calling card

Appears again. Mark of intimidation.

Clue to someone’s arrest, detention, deportation.

The address on

The paper threat

Points to an enemy

To migrants

And citizens.

The war over citizenship is on

And the highest card in the deck,

The Ace Of Spades, 

Isn’t just Bicycle’s “Secret Weapon”.

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W: 2.25.26