God love you and keep you, you son of a bitch,
Scratching your ass or wherever you itch,
Restless in sleep as you jump and you twitch.
Go, when you’re called from your haunts and your sports;
Go, be a number in battle’s reports.
Drown your desires and shoot in your shorts
Take up your rifle and take up your clip,
Take the canteen and water you’ll sip.
You’ve got a class that you don’t want to skip,
As on this cross, Christ!
FOXHOLE
Your nearness thundered through me and I shook,
And when you said, “You’re trembling.” I said, “Yes.”
And then you asked, “Ya scared?” What could I say?
We two had been together since the States
And I had kept the bluff and we were friends.
Why, I remember how it was we met.
We both were standing naked. You were soaped
From head to foot and then the shower quit.
I never heard a rhythmic stream of words
So finely mouthed, and chewed and spitted out
But now we lie together in the sand
Upon a tropic beach. The enemy,
For all our air and sea and boasted might,
Had held his little island and opposed
Our coming with such surety of aim
That half our comrades dropped face down, face up,
And did not feel the black and blooded wash
That played between their sprawled and spreaded legs.
We two were forward on the farthest flank
That hoped to outmaneuver and destroy
The deep pillbox entrenchment where the Nip
Had taken his position and command
Of all the open, dead-man beach between.
We’d found a little dune and dug us in,
And all the long tormented afternoon
We lobbed our ineffectual grenades
Against the fort foreknowledge of the Jap.
When night came on we got the word to hold,
But silence and the darkness held us close
And I could hear your breathing, feel you near.
And then there went through me an echoing roar
As when a mountainside of snow and ice
Lets loose its frantic grip and tumbles down.
And then you said, “You’re trembling.” I said, “Yes.”
You asked, “Ya scared?” And I said, “Yes,” again.
The silence fell between us for a while.
Your hand reached out and rudely grasped my arm.
“You’re lying, kid.” Your grip was strong and fierce.
You held me there as if to make me shout
With pain or ecstasy, and time rushed by
Unclocked. You shuddered then and let me go.
“You’re lying, kid, and so, sweet God, am I.”
The blast of brilliance, flame and heat that came
Exploding close beside us threw the sand,
And shell, and death and you and me apart.
How long we lay half buried none will tell
I know I wakened somewhere near the dawn
And saw you stretched and saw your trousers torn.
I crawled beside you, brushed away the sand
That filled your eyes. I held you in my arms,
And pressed my mouth to yours as if my breath
Within your lungs would bring your arms around me.
I know I sobbed, and wept, and cursed, and prayed.
My fevered hands I burned beneath your blouse
To touch your unresponsive, frigid flesh.
And then I knew that you were dead,
That you were dead,
That you were dead,
That we should lie no more!