{"id":4570,"date":"2023-05-05T10:38:02","date_gmt":"2023-05-05T17:38:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/test-inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/?p=4570"},"modified":"2024-12-06T09:15:22","modified_gmt":"2024-12-06T17:15:22","slug":"s-sgt-metz-by-dorianne-laux","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test-inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/s-sgt-metz-by-dorianne-laux\/","title":{"rendered":"“S. Sgt. Metz” by Dorianne Laux"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n
\n\n
\"issue63\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Found in\u00a0Willow Springs 63<\/em><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Back to Author Profile<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n

\n\n

“S. Sgt. Metz” by Dorianne Laux<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

Metz is alive for now, standing in line<\/p>\n\n\n\n

at the airport Starbucks in his camo gear<\/p>\n\n\n\n

and buzz cut, his beautiful new<\/p>\n\n\n\n

camel-colored suede boots. His hands<\/p>\n\n\n\n

are thick-veined. The good blood<\/p>\n\n\n\n

still flows through, given an extra surge<\/p>\n\n\n\n

when he slurps his latte, a fleck of foam<\/p>\n\n\n\n

caught on his bottom lip.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I can see into the channel of his right ear,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

a narrow darkness spiraling deep inside his head<\/p>\n\n\n\n

toward the place of dreaming and fractions,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ponds of quiet thought.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the sixties my brother left for Vietnam,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

a war no one understood, and I hated him for it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When my boyfriend was drafted I made a vow<\/p>\n\n\n\n

to write him a letter every day, and then broke it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was a girl torn between love and the idea of love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I burned the letters in a metal trash bin<\/p>\n\n\n\n

behind the broken fence. It was the summer of love<\/p>\n\n\n\n

and I wore nothing under my cotton vest,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

my Mexican skirt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I see Metz later, outside baggage claim,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

hunched over a cigarette, mumbling<\/p>\n\n\n\n

into his cell phone. He’s more real to me now<\/p>\n\n\n\n

than my brother was to me then, his big eyes<\/p>\n\n\n\n

darting from car to car as they pass.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I watch him whisper into his hands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don’t believe in anything anymore:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

god, country, money, or love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All that matters to me now<\/p>\n\n\n\n

is his life, the body so perfectly made,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

mysterious in its workings, its oiled<\/p>\n\n\n\n

and moving parts, the whole of him<\/p>\n\n\n\n

standing up and raising one arm<\/p>\n\n\n\n

to hail a bus, his legs pulling him forward,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

all muscle and sinew and living gristle,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

the countless bones in his foot tapped in his boot,,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

stepping off the red curb.<\/p>\n\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":25234,"featured_media":640,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wpo365_audiences":[],"wpo365_private":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4570","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured-work"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test-inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4570"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test-inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test-inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test-inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25234"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test-inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4570"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/test-inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4570\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37459,"href":"https:\/\/test-inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4570\/revisions\/37459"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test-inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/640"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test-inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test-inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test-inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}