Operation Unending 

          I.

The thick brush silences itself,
anticipating the wealth of rain
yet to come.
Vietcong lay deep
in the trenches of the forest.
I am clinging tightly
to the picture of my pregnant wife
in Schenectady.
Echoes of grenades and screams that follow
seem to numb my fear.
When I left, my mother filled
my knapsack with oranges
and called me her hero.

          II.

Moisture develops under my chin.
The sweat slides down either side
of my face and trickles down under my helmet.
Grains of sand float around
creating a consistent haze in
the violent Iraqi sun.
A journalist to my left shoots
the most recent video of the news
to accompany the release
of the new number
of dead soldiers.
I joined for my father,
my hero, who died in 1969.
We never met.

          III.

In any case,
the big, white house sits
across the world.
Those inside finish
their duck smothered
in pomegranate salsa.
With furrowed brows,
they consider the
muffled protests outside.
Later, over tea,
there is talk of poorly
executed plans
causing the
execution
of poorly informed soldiers.
They discuss the next villain
to isolate and place at the forefront. 


by Contributing Poet  Heather Wyatt   Copyright © 2015 
 VWP 2015     First published in  VietnamWarPoetry.com ​

Bio:  Heather Wyatt  is an English instructor at the University of Alabama.
Her work has been published in The Marr's Field Journal, Public Republic, Snakeskin, tak'til, 
The Broad River Review, Blinking Cursor Literary Magazine, The Whistling Fire, Stymie Magazine, 
Falling Star Magazine, Linden Avenue Literary Journal, Straight Forward Poetry, The Binnacle, 
OVS Magazine, The Burden of Light: Poems on Illness and Loss, Heyday Magazine, ETA Journal,
​Silly Tree Anthologies, and Puff Puff Prose Poetry and a Play.
She received her Bachelor’s degree in American Studies from the University of Alabama
and her MFA in Poetry from Spalding University in Louisville, KY. ​