Tina Hacker | Fortunes of War | Poets Resist

Tina Hacker is a four-time Pushcart Prize nominee whose work has appeared in a wide variety of journals, both online and paper. Her full-length poetry book, Listening to Night Whistles, was published by Aldrich Press and her chapbook, Cutting It, by The Lives You Touch Publications. Since 1976, she has edited poetry for Veterans’ Voices, a magazine of writing by veterans from every state in the country.

Also by Tina Hacker: Listening to Night Whistles Cutting It Needlepoint

Poets Resist
Edited by Jemshed Khan
May 19, 2019

Tina Hacker

Fortunes of War

Laos has the distinction of being the most heavily bombed nation on earth. Every eight minutes. For nine years. Bombs spread through fields, markets, villages like clusters of weeds. Two thirds of the shells explode, the remainder wait for prey — buffalo, foraging hens and drakes, farmers, children, monks. Then peace. Warnings everywhere. Do not touch, scavenge, stockpile the shiny slayers. A mother lets her toddler explore a small patch of soil declared shell-free by the government. He came into the world after the bombers stopped clouding the sky. Baby feet teeter; his body lurches over a lump in his path. Only a rock. No blast. Right time. Right place. A father gathers shards, casings buried in his infested fields. He feels rich every time he uncovers some shrapnel. Plentiful, the scrap brings enough income to feed his children. He shapes the UXO into knives, spoons, bowls until one fragment detonates. Wrong time. Wrong place.