Black sky spitting down
staccato red flashes,
hitting the sand,
leaving neatly spaced wounds
along the shore.
Heat so intense
it would boil bottle bourbon.
Nighttime guard duty
and Graves Registration.
Rats the size of cats
that even now,
some twenty years later,
I wake hearing their scratching!
And rain so heavy
you could lose your hand
in front of your face.
A short-timer’s calendar
anxiously marked,
a line in each place.
One, wake-up. Then Saigon.
Then back to the States.
Kennedy airport
full of bra-burners
and draft-dodgers
who spit in my face.