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).