“My stretcher is one scarlet stain.” -Robert W. Service, “The Stretcher Bearer”
By Lawrence “Mack in Texas” Hall (Rated PG13)
In illo tempore:
I don’t know that anyone shouted, “Corpsman up!”
Like in the movies; I was already up
There, where smoking metal scraps stopped in some kid’s flesh
Red fragments of flesh screaming in the sun
Later:
Carrying bodies of literature was impossible
But I tried; Wordsworth and Keats during the day
Holes in the patients and in sterile drapes
Red fragments of flesh in the E. R. at night
Now:
In the evenings I carry Wordsworth outside
And my older self, to a chair at dusk
LogoSophia Magazine 