Poems About War

by

Robert H. Dirr Jr.

Delicate bones, covered with jaundiced skin.
Cheeks hollowed by the loss of weight,
Evaporated like water on a hot summer day.
Tubes and wires led from arms to bottles, with a machine
Pumping morphine into his veins. The head nurse
Said he set a record in the hospice: Six weeks!

I entered his room for that final conversation, but he was
Too fucked up from the morphine. His eyes kept rolling
Into his head and I could not understand him.
That night, he crawled over the high bed rails to be near my
Sleeping mother. They found him on the floor the next
Morning, propped up against her portable cot.

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