White Mice

Table of Contents

White Mice

We're in a convoy
stopped at a narrow bridge
while two MPs and a couple
of South Vietnamese Police
argue and gesture.
The White Mice are on one side
and the MPs on the other.
I see one of the White Mice
motion for a deuce-and-a-half
towing two trailers of ammo,
filled full of mess equipment,
and two cooks, to cross the bridge.
Everything happens in slow motion
as if it has been orchestrated,
and this is the final take.
The Six-By slides into a rice paddy,
turns over from the weight
of the ammo trailers.
What looks like no more
than two to three feet of water
must seem like an ocean
to those trapped.
The driver emerges
a couple of minutes later,
gasping for breath.
I don't see the cooks.
Disbelief turns to anger.
I curse the White Mice's incompetency.
Two cooks drown in a ditch
while black clad peasant women
in conical straw hats
replant green seedlings.