a few meters
with his rifle and his E-tool
to take a shit
when he tripped
what must have been a booby-trapped
bomb or artillery shell.
with a gut cramp and diarrhea,
the next instant
he was vaporized.
by his buddies
and placed in a poncho,
his squad leader carried him back to the LZ- his rifle in one hand,
the poncho in the other
like a bag of dirty socks.
Soon his mother would receive
the "body" of her son
who had left home
three months before
as a 170-pound 19 year old
and whose remains now weighted less
than the baby boy
she had brought into this world
just eighteen years before.
He stepped off the trail
One moment he was alive
When his remains were collected
And so it all came down to this.
copyright © 1996 by John Musgrave, from his book "Under a Flare-lit Sky: Vietnam Poems," all rights reserved.
