just another day, this eve of May
with April's abnegation of her title, the queen of time
just another day, when the mother marked an "X" on the calendar,
holding her breath with hope, her coffee in one hand
and the red pen in the other, the hand she used to make two slashes
to bring your boy a fraction closer to home

he was to arrive alive and well in a fortnight,
neatly packaged, like a belated  mother's day gift
a reasonable thing to expect, the eve of May,
since you, his father, had arrived the same way,
after her same hand, younger, more dream driven,
had brought you home with the same crosses

but you, the man for whom she waited, all those eves ago
were wrapped neatly only long enough to see April's thirty crosses,
May's eager ambitious start, and you came unwrapped,
leaving your uniform on the bedroom floor
in a heavy heap you said reminded you of what you left behind,
not in the steaming stench of Mekong’s paddies,
but in the quiet lanes of your hometown,
in the high school where you met her, the church where you married
and where you were sure you would be buried

‘twas not yet to be so, your eve of May passed,
along with thirty five more, though you were there,
walking the same streets, to you, the crumpled green garments
were still in a heap on the floor, even though
she had buried them in a drawer years before
you did not mark off the days, for they made you
wonder if their end meant your homecoming
and not his, an infidelity you felt

you watched March march by, and April finally relent
when “they” came to the door, neatly packaged themselves,
***** and filled with well formed words--you did not hear them,
though you saw their lips move, and you watched
your wife walk past, to the ancient kitchen,
the kingdom of the calendar,
and make a final "X" this eve of May
just another day, when another mother's son  
who was crucified in the desert
would become a mystic memory

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