He smelled bad and was red-eyed with the miseries <br />of being scared while sleepless when he said <br />this: “I want a private woman, peace and quiet, <br />and some green stuff in my pocket. Fuck <br />the rest.” Pity the underwear and socks, <br />long burnt, of an accomplished murderer, <br />oh God, of germans and replacements, who <br />refused three stripes to keep his B.A.R., <br />who fought, fought not to fight some days <br />like any good small businessman of war, <br />and dug more holes than an outside dog <br />to modify some Freudian’s thesis: “No <br />man can stand three hundred days <br />of fear of mutilation and death.” What he <br />theorized was a joke: “To keep a tight <br />asshole, dry socks and a you-deep hole <br />with you at all times.” Afterwards, <br />met in a sports shirt with a round wife, he was <br />the clean slave of a daughter, a power brake <br />and beer. To me, he seemed diminished <br />in his dream, or else enlarged, who knows?, <br />by its accomplishment: personal life <br />wrung from mass issues in a bloody time <br />and lived out hiddenly. Aside from sound <br />baseball talk, his only interesting remark <br />was, in pointing to his wife’s belly, “If <br />he comes out left foot first” (the way <br />you Forward March!), “I am going to stuff <br />him back up.” “Isn’t he awful?” she said.<br /><br />Alan Dugan<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/portrait-from-the-infantry/
