my pasture will be paid for
courtesy of the Veterans Administration  
grass above my bones will be under “perpetual care”
cropped square, green and never allowed to be with ****  
much the same as it was with me, when I was ten and eight
and taught to hasten others to their own plots  

I fear some of them became feast for maggots
or the wild dogs’ jaws, deprived of a bugle’s clarion call  
a politely folded banner, or serenely composed, lugubrious pall
their eyes were not closed gently, with a loved one by their side  
the night came to them amidst man made thunder,
fire from the perverse steel  

in eventide’s charcoal stillness  
where I await my inevitable “agricultural” fate  
their faces appear on the ceiling, faintly,
waiting for my company, not asking
why I am not yet among them, not knowing
the mutual mad marching of our feet has been replaced
by something called years, or that their humble silence  
has left me with yet greater eternal fears