"Facing it" by Yusef Komunyakaa

The poet makes it clear that he is in the Vietnam's veteran memorial (11).
He is standing in front of the list of names in which he expects to find his own (14-16).
To me the poet is having flashbacks of the actual  Vietnam war as he stands in the memorial. As he goes down the list of names he recognizes some of them and relives the moment these people died.
He constantly is going in and out of memories he had. His attention is put to the sky when he sees a red bird. He thinks of a plane in vietnam then remembers a white man with pale eyes who has lost his arm(22-28).The last few lines to me was like a point of realization. He is pulled out of the trance of being in. At fist he thought he was seeing the women erasing names but then realize she was just brushing a boys hair. This is probably what was really happening at that time (29-31).