​​June, 1969 

We gathered behind your honor guard,
listened to last words under the glint
of rifles raised to a scorched, milky sky.
 
With each volley we flinched, a cracking
above our prairie, wisps of cordite
on the wind. And when they lowered you
 
into loam and clay, your remains lay
at attention—at the edge of Highway 49,
in formation among the graveyard’s stones,
 
not a single one of us at ease as we shuffled
to our cars on the crunch of gravel,
the muffled thuds of closing doors.
 
What could you tell us of death, Mike?
What would you say of Hamburger Hill,
of choppered air and snipered dreams,
 
a body’s final arc into mud? Of the hit
you took as we hunched over freshman finals,
half a globe away, 2-S and deferred? 


by Contributing Poet  Justin Hunt   Copyright © 2020 
VWP 2020    VietnamWarPoetry.com 

Bio:  Justin Hunt  grew up in rural Kansas and lives in Charlotte, NC. In 2012, he retired from a long international business career in order to write. His work appears or is forthcoming in Five Points, Michigan Quarterly Review, New Ohio Review, The Florida Review, Bellingham Review, Southword (Ireland), Arts & Letters, The Atlanta Review, and Spoon River Poetry Review, among other journals and publications.  
www.justinhunt.online ​