The Dignified Transfer

With no intentions or words I begin,

just an idea, and a fear,

I am bereft of any respect I had left

for our “democracy"

I dreamed distantly of someone

that may have been my brother,

He was given the dignified transfer,

The purple heart and a folded flag

I have a microphoned heartbeat  

in front of a crowd,

They wait with bated breath.

He came home and 

I. Can’t. Speak.

This eulogy should easily utter itself,

I walk away from the mourning din

 let me get back to my own safe home

without dead soldiers

 without bullet holes in corrugated tin

  without these tears and anger

   without this oil, money and blood

    without this kid-hero 

in a shining box worth more than my car.

The bittersweet pride of dying for a country that only seems 

to plot to spread

a couldn’t care less- stressed out- economic disease

                    ***

He was given the dignified transfer

conducted promptly upon arrival.