iii Scotch Tape, Oh

Variations on Vietnam Memorials

By: Fred Marchant - Jan 17, 2016

iii Scotch Tape, Oh

They rise up out of the lawn like trees,
and walk. They are armored and warmed
with fallen leaves. There are no leaves
left on the ordinary trees. There is barely
grass enough for them to walk on. Their
legs are long, and longer, and shadowed.
They do not fit together exactly, the legs
that is. Nor the three of them in the place
they walk. In fact nothing fits in just the
right way. All we see here we see is taped
together, inserted as it were, in proximate
emotional elongations: I don't belong here,
we say I am not like that, no, not me, that
is not what happened, not at all, But there
it is, the tape, and the world it holds together,
It is not invisible. You see it, the tape that
is, and you are supposed to see its filmy
opacity, and the sawtooth cuts, where Giuliano
realigns, and reassembles us as either
ants criss-crossing the common ground,
or as one of the three sentimental bronzes,
loaded down with canteens and grenades,
and hiking wearily toward the names.

Fred Marchant

Oct. 19, 2001