Time travels of an old man


It's simple to be young again
No longer old and frail like me.
But handsome and seventeen
I close my eyes and find
sleep descending
like a foggy mantle.

My buddies join me
We are sharing a doobie in Nam.
I can still  feel the love of these guys.
Soldiers get closer than wives.
The evening is dark tonight
Moonless.

Charlie mounts an attack.
The tracer bullets light up the clearing.
My young friends are cut down.
Crying for their mother.

Air power blows Charlie away.
Joe my best friend
lies dying in my arms.
He whispered  his last breath
I love you man.
I am weeping
Not as much as I love you man.

I was hit too but not dead.

My travels in time move on now
It's six months later in West Virginia

I walk to the trailer door
With the use of my cane.
A new lifelong appendage.

A beautiful  young woman  answers
She is holding a baby in her arms.

I pass the letter that we prepared
In case well just in case.
It has blood on the envelope
I tell her it was mine.

She wept as she read Joe's letter.
I hold her baby as she reads it.
Whispering to him
See buddy your just fine
Your not dead at all.
I love you man.

I wake from my time travels
It's the 21st century.
But the tears in my eyes
Are from so long ago.