Basic Training

Tom, the Vietnam War veteran,
who lived across the street from us,
emptied the contents of his medic kit
out onto the lawn.

I asked him what each was used for,
while I slipped in comments about how
my mother was hitting my father and I
and getting away with it.

He went right for the smelling salt,
as he told me a story about how
he brought this
one guy back from the dead with one.

This was followed by a demonstration,
myself the volunteer,
and a warning not to breathe in too hard.

He snapped the salt under my nose,
and I hit myself in the face
with an open hand,
jumped up and down,
cried,

the only thing on my mind,
wishing I could be dead at the snap of
a finger, but not her finger.