The Tenth Fold

http://tabbykatus.tripod.com/id5.html

I will never forget my Uncle Tommy, himself a WWII veteran and POW, being handed this triangle of stars in mid-March 1968. And I will never forget his son, my beloved cousin Tommy Jr., to whom the poem below is dedicated. It is an angry poem as well as a sorrowful one.

       Gia Dinh

          In memory of Thomas F. Smith, Jr.
          (July 13, 1945 - March 3, 1968)

In Washington there’s bugger-all

to lure me down from Montreal.

And yet, when it was done I came

to tell and touch and trace your name,

to taste the wormwood and the gall.

The Tet Offensive saw you fall

near Hoc Mon Bridge. Still maggots crawl

and feast and life is much the same

in Washington.

It’s strange the things I best recall –

you hated Ringo, I loved Paul.

You dreamed you’d pitch the perfect game

like Koufax. What a bloody shame.

I weep beside this granite wall 

in Washington.