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Words From Pete poem

By Paula J. Countryman

He said, I don't eat white rice.
I hurried to ask,
What if it were brown or black?
No rice to eat;
Not ever, he replied.
I drove the trucks
in Vietnam,
he sighed.
Trucks with moldy carrots,
rotten potatoes and more.
Maggots swarmed there
in the eyes of potatoes,
and those of my comrades.
Maggots are rice,
and rice are maggots.
I don't eat white rice,
he softly cried.

—Paula J. Countryman