Father knew **** about Vietnam,
Says Bill, other than what he heard

On the radio or the newspapers or
All that other spiel from red necks

Or dumb heads, he knew nothing
About the real war or the reasons

Behind the death fields. Bill inhales
On his cigarette and takes in the

Young feller undressed and laid
Out on the bed with his thin arms

Behind his head, his ***** hanging
Limp like something dead. He watches

As the youngster looks up at the ceiling,
A cigarette held between red lips, his

Pale blue eyes like ponds of shallow
Water. We pulled out of Vietnam quicker

Than a ***** drops her draws in the end,
Although we in the know knew it’d come

To that even before the politician could
Pull up their pants and put on the public

Faces. The youngster sniggers, pulls on
His smoke, some private joke, Bill considers,

The shallowness of youth, remembering
Young soldiers in Vietnam and elsewhere

In later years blown up or out or dead or
****** in the head. The youngster gazes

At Bill wondering if this guy was some secret
Government agent who could **** as good

As he could ****, whether it was all just talk
Or whether the guy could walk the deadly

Walk. Bill smiles, the innocence of youth,
He muses, stubbing his cigarette **** into

An ashtray, remembering the young kid
Whose throat he slit in Mexico some years

Back as he sat and ****, some double cross,
Some dark deceit, Agency orders, job done,

Neat and clean, unknown, unloved, unseen.