​​                        Vietnam Memorial 

                        Not all made The Wall.
                        Not all got a name engraved
                        with granite raindrop dimples
                        in a still, black pool

                        Not all made The Wall.

                        He brought the war
                        back home with him,
                        locked and loaded
                        in his eyes

                        A high school wrestler, he
                        grappled with shattered bodies
                        rising in a blur of blades,
                        crazy clock hands spinning
                        time stopped.

                        I'm kind of sick
                        of killing people, he said, before

                        going AWOL, crashing
                        a stolen cop car through
                        the school’s front door,
                        a needle into a vein.

                        Not all made The Wall. 


                        by Contributing Poet  Michael Waterson   Copyright © 2015 
                        VWP 2015     First published in  VietnamWarPoetry.com ​

                        Bio:  Michael Waterson  grew up in Pittsburgh, PA during the 1960s
​                        and lost quite a few of his classmates to the Vietnam War. 
                        Vietnam Memorial is a poem about one of them.
                        He missed being drafted by chance, both before the lottery and then because of it.
                        He is a retired journalist living in Napa, CA and Napa Valley's Poet Laureate emeritus. ​