ABIGAIL B. CALKIN
The Wall
The Wall
teems with life. People walk
reflections in color
against line after line of names
Ulysses Battle, +John M. Brucher, Rodney M. Chapman,
Virgil C. Combs, John P. Cook, Gerald A. Gray, …
I want to be alone
to respect the names of those who died
in field, en route, in hospital,
in mud of delta, in jungles of the Highlands
under hands of doctors of twenty-eight,
nurses twenty-two and surgical techs in their teens
or surgeons who triaged on the floor in the corner
while others saved someone else's son.
Your name is not there
and that has made all the difference in my life.
Last year Emmanuel, a taxi driver, took
me to The Wall. Go, go see your husband's friends.
I left everything on the seat.
Ran past the walk turned to blurt a cry of tears
as the black granite V cut the gut of ground,
caught my eye, and punched my lungs.
I tipped him all I had, $8 for a $12 fare.
I'd have tipped him $50 if I'd had it.
Today my husband lives
and nameless, countless others too.
I know no name on that Wall but they are
husbands, fathers, brothers, sons,
comrades-in-arms.
In that black granite gut of a V, also lies
my husband’s innocence and that of his comrades.
James Carlson, Layne Clifton, James L. Hull, Paul Sheer…
poetryrepairs #211 15,04:046
Change
You enlisted as a private, retired as a major,
but the USA didn’t want you to remember
what changed you.
Now you’ve forgotten—
not deep inside your war-laden neurons
but in your daily life.
How much does it take not to remember those moments?
poetryrepairs #211 15,04:046
31
In memory of the 31 lost in the helicopter crashes of August 2011
31 lost
31 doors
Receive that dreaded knock,
Unwanted visit
Leave families with shattered hearts
31 pairs of boots lined up with rifles and dog tags and helmets
Comrades grieved for and remembered
31 funerals
Names on newly made grave markers
31 empty places at the table
31 souls who gave all, whose deaths leave a void.
Take 31 days and months
—Pause
Reflect
on—
Sacrifices of 31 lives gone forever.
poetryrepairs #211 15,04:046
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