Rereading a Disturbing Poem

I inch my way through Randall Jarrell
slowly advancing my bare feet in the tall grass.
It itches my ankles
and blocks out the sun
keeping the ground muddy.
I can see neither trees nor forest
because his poems are thickets
and marshy fields where danger lurks unseen.

In the silence, you must move slowly
or you will be startled by ink-colored corpses,
bombers spelling words in the sky.
Death barely misses me,
but catches the girl in the poem.
A feeling-fog lingers,
confusion and sadness, and I hope
this poem was not based on a true story.
It sounds too real to be fiction:
the little black girl killed,
and the red clay staining her white dress.
Who would think of that, if not the mind of actual events?

Despite a rational hesitation against terrible things,
I am forced to retrace my steps,
to reread the poem,
because I still don't quite understand what happened.