The night of Desert Storm I've put my daughter and my love on a plane
to Amsterdam: German shepherds sniff about deserted Kennedy
for pipe bombs, toxic germs, incense-burners. At home, bodega
freezer racks are stocked with Jolt, a coffee soda to go with C-rats
for the GIs. In my head are only echoes of the streams
of smoke from space-shot Challenger. When I call days later,
Berlin's no longer throwing plasterstone at U.S. consul gates,
but simmering in trust for war-worn Norman Schwartzkopf.
The Post runs a picture of a supposed baby milk plant--
not far from the Euphrates, and Tom Brokaw clips a video
of censored enemy news: close-ups of infant formula spin off
racks in green-glass flasks, Iraqui college kids mop in European
overalls with Baby Milk Plant stamped upon their smocks
in English, to drive the message home that this joystick video hit
we've scored was off, another Emerald City blunder, a blasted
Mozart regimen--say no harboring of sulphurous Scuds inside.
But I dreamt last night of King Khalid, of boghammer PT boats
and oily cormorants fishing the ooze-flame straits of Bahrain,
and then the bluish milk in all the factory spilt, a caravan
of preemies crawling across concrete to face the downed jet
pilot lying in a pool of it, as it mixes with his blood and curdles.

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