Old men of the VFW-
put down your mugs
and listen up.
I have a story, too.
It’s about the face
of a second lieutenant
I keep seeing in my dreams.
He staggers bareheaded
onto the road,
the road out there
in the rubber plantation.
He’s hold up
A No. 10 envelope
with the remains of one of your sons,
bone slivers
scraped with a bayonet
from the hull of the APC
he sent down Highway One.
He just keeps coming at me,
holding out someone’s soul
for the U.S. Mail,
his face a map
of all the roads we marched down,
one boot after the other
into all the trophy cases
of your goddamned VFW halls.
You tell me how it ends.
You got all the answers.