In Manila,
I watched them toss coins
into a canal slick with waste—
sailors and Marines laughing,
like children on leave
from war.
The kids dove in
as if they’d waited
their whole lives
to win back
what was never theirs.
I saw the barracks in Beirut,
hundreds folded beneath concrete and smoke.
Boots stiff in blood-black root.
A hand, still curled—
reaching for something
it would never hold again.
No one screamed.
No one begged.
They laughed.
All of them.
The sailors clapped
as a boy surfaced
with a peso in his teeth.
Shit on his shoulders,
his eyes bright,
water gone black,
slick as oil.
He grinned.
His brothers did too.
I wanted it to stop.
I let it happen.
Later,
I drank in silence.
Smoked two cigars to ash.
The war had rules.
But this—
this was joy
drawn from rot.
And I—
kept watching.
