Facing It

The poem begins with the speaker’s skin color, and a sense of disappearance: “My black face fades” (line 1). The tone this creates is strongly racial, indicating that as a Black American who served in Vietnam, the speaker does not feel fully seen and easily disappears into the names of fallen veterans before him. Though the speaker never directly addresses the racist history of the United States, it is well documented that Black Americans have been historically oppressed; further, there is a sense the speaker doesn’t see himself reflected in the same heroic way as his white counterparts. Though the speaker survived the war and therefore cannot be named on the wall since it memorializes lost or missing soldiers, the speaker says: “I go down the 58,022 names,/ half-expecting to find/ my own in letters like smoke” (lines 14-16, italics added). There is a dual meaning here: The speaker wasn’t convinced their name would be on the wall since: a) they are still living, and b) they are a Black Army veteran.

After not seeing their own name, the speaker continues to scan the wall’s contents and stops: “I touch the name Andrew Johnson;/ I see the booby trap's white flash” (lines 17-18, italics added). Rather than saying bright or explosive, it is notable the speaker selected a white soldier’s name—who was a soldier from the poet’s hometown and is also the name of former President Johnson who succeeded Lincoln and denied equal protection to freed slaves—and fells a “white flash” of the booby trap. This particular image is rife with potential meaning: Is the speaker talking about the bright explosion of a bomb in Vietnam, or the more subtle racial tension? As Komunyakaa is a highly educated and skilled poet, it is likely the double meaning here was intentional.