freckle-faced
     jug-eared
          left-handed
skinny as a fungo bat
loose-jointed
     like a string-puppet
in sports  
     not great but
          scrappy and fun
long distance runner
     played hard
          no grudges
nobody’s idea of handsome
     voice like a scratchy record
married straight out of high school
     drafted
101st Airborne
     everybody had a dumb nickname
          Denny, Little Old Lady
               nobody remembers why
     Thua Thien, South Vietnam
          hit by an RPG
               August 5, 1968
smithereens in a body bag
days later, a letter
     informs
          he’s a daddy
Denny, if you’d lived sixteen more days
     you could’ve legally bought beer
I’m sixty-seven years old
     you’re forever
          almost twenty-one
    
Memorial Day 2015
We've lost them by the thousands.  
We grieve them one by one.