He stepped off the trail
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.
One moment he was alive
with a gut cramp and diarrhea,
the next instant
he was vaporized.
When his remains were collected
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.
And so it all came down to this.
Soon his mother would receive
the "body" of her son
who had left home
three months before
as a 170-pound Marine
and whose remains now weighted less
than the baby boy
she had brought into this world
just eighteen years before.
copyright © 1996 by John Musgrave, from his book "Under a Flare-lit Sky: Vietnam Poems,"
all rights reserved.
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