The Most Beautiful Word

t h e    m o s t    b e a u t i f u l    w o r d
--- L I N H   D I N H

I think "vesicle" is the most beautiful word in the English language.
He was lying face down, his shirt burnt off, back steaming. I myself
was bleeding. There was a harvest of vesicles on his back. His body
wept. "Yaw" may be the ugliest. Don't say, "The bullet yawed inside
the body." Say, "The bullet danced inside the body." Say, "The bul-
let tumbled forward and upward." Light slanted down. All the lesser
muscles in my face twitched. I flipped my man over gently, like an
impatient lover, careful not to fracture his C-spine. Dominoes
clanked under crusty skin: Clack! Clack! A collapsed face stared up.
There was a pink spray in the air, then a brief rainbow. The mandible
was stitched with blue threads to the soul. I extracted a tooth from
the tongue. He had swallowed the rest.


by Linh Dinh