“Dream of the Disappeared” by Cecil L. Sayre

Cecil L. Sayre

DREAM OF THE DISAPPEARED

Argentina, 1977

His death I dream;
his death I sleep,
falling naked
through hundreds
of feet of air,
hitting the water,
splashing against
its surface,
water raining
back down
on me
as I sink
deeper and deeper
into the ocean,
another one
of the disappeared.

I was not a young boy
tossing rocks I had collected
over the side of a bridge
into a creek,
I was a man, a soldier,
following orders,
and he was nothing, a rebel,
bones and blood, drugged,
stripped of clothing,
pushed from a plane
at 1300 feet,

still alive,
still the enemy,
drowning in the Atlantic,
drowning in my dreams,
my sleep,
where I can no longer
disappear.

from Rattle #20, Winter 2003

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