Thursday, March 29, 2007

Napalm Girl

See the Photograph

"Too hot, too hot."

Did you think to find traitors
burrowed into my muscles

like so many parasitic worms?


Should my small size seem somehow sinister?
Even smaller than you,
who are small enough.
Fit to tunnel
in the walls of your tunnels,
to pop out,
surprise!

Are we a wee army?

Do we lay in wait for you,
marbles in hand,
to pelt you with questions
which slay you?

Kim Phuc, the napalm girl, lives in Canada now, having survived the napalm attack by a South Vietnamese pilot. She was assisted in receiving medical care by South Vietnamese photographer, Nick Ut, who won a Pulitzer Prize for the photo. Here is a BBC News article about the incident in the words of Nick Ut.