Three Witnesses to a Puerto Rican Field Used for Military Testing
I. Decomposing Animal Corpse
I am not a soul; that is gone; long soft ears are gone, my softness is gone, left and will never come back, does not exist. I might as well be painted onto a canvas, finally, I could coat something beautiful, something that existed before the violence came, not despite it– mounds, farmland, coconuts, mangrove, coral, seagrass beds. This field kills. I am brown bones, I am raw meat, I am flies and pungent –no flowers. I am a heated stench. I am an ignited structure, I am kindled tendons, I am mottled grass. I am black skies with no stars, a kind of purgatory. I have none of the nobility of a hopping hare, I have no soul, I smell, death did not free me, for I am still here, the ground rumbles and I am here, the air is smoke and I am here, the men yell and stomp and I am here. These explosions are not the all-knowing grace of a god awakened, do not praise them, for they are a dark dark evil.
II. Rabbit
My fur is hazy swept, craters of scalp indenting my back. My body has blossomed, opened itself up as men do. Soldiers chant as I hop, run. I am a compact mammal, adapting every time the soil beneath me becomes unbound, every time the soil beneath me is relapsing ripples, is variegated waves, is old bent feathers that sag from the flesh of a wing’s expanse till wind plucks it off, is the circle of rolling necks, of twisted feet, of folded cloth pinned on rope and gathered at noon, those women long gone. Now I believe this space can only occupy downwards Earth, thornbrush, and me. Therefore I must have something greater, something more in common with the men and the explosions and the field, I must have something more. Oh my bountiful field, exploding with red thorns, plucked feathers, and pools of projected sky. You are a spectacle. The explosions are within you, not like gentle thunder, but with abnormal rage, explosions like a disassembled death shooting out every nearby thing. To detonate is to be reimagined as a million little particles of blood and flesh, each with tiny wings that flutter fast and far, feeding every nook of this field. To detonate is to be dust and bone. Each reverberating thump opens subliminals in my mind. I forgive this field. I forgive every grave. I celebrate the bodies composting into the rich dark soil. I celebrate my gut, I celebrate my instinct, I celebrate my fear. I celebrate—praise this rapture.
III. Thornbush
I love my wiry frame, how it catches the noses of hares in the hooks and splinters of my being, my roots are stiff and old and will not be moved, I don’t care if the ground wants to rumble I will not be moved, even if the platoons hide in their perfect trinities behind barriers and barriers of sandbags. I am not here to hide. I am not here to be seen, I am not here to be heard, I am an invisible casket, I can elude any gaze with my see-through dexterity. I watched the bare footprints become bootprints. Most do not want to see; the soldiers toe their way through me with machine guns, like that will stop me from clinging to every layer of fabric and skin I can find. Oh, but my field! the way it tosses and turns with hunger, explosions with the force of wind and sunbeams and much metal and dust, I am in love with destruction. I love it. I am in love with the caught animal and its awkward posture as it writhes in my grip, I am in love with the bare bones and the pure decay and its glorious stench. I am in love with myself and my many many thorns.
