Over 16,528,650 people are on fubar.
What are you waiting for?
“Afghanistan” The patients who are able, rise.
The President, with cameras and microphones,
Invades the healing space. The soldiers’ eyes
Remember blasts and blood and broken bones.
A trooper’s leg becomes a photo op.
One question brings the fear and shakes anew.
No order comes to make his story stop,
His Nike nudging Presidential shoe.
A woman, draped in pink, waits in her chair,
The wheels well braced. Her arms are not in view.
The drape she wears itself suggests a clue:
Beneath, she may not have the arms to bare.
Not quite beyond the camera’s frame
A soldier thinks, “They never understand.
He’ll march again; I’ll never be the same,
And learn to live with one remaining hand.”
He sent them whole and healthy to Kandahar.
…The President thanks each, then thanks the Lord
Their blood and bones bought early passage back.
“…You’ll get the best care yer taxes can afford.”
The cynics eyeball their departing Prez.
“Care? Shit, my taxes can’t afford a beer!”
“He loses in November, fifty says
We never see his face again in here.”
© LT.David Martin
