Tonight's Poet Corner: The Fallen Are Not All Dead

The Fallen Are Not All Dead
by Belinda Roddie

He drinks cold soup from his battered helmet,
cradling the makeshift bowl in his lap, his face
spotted with the dirt of the street and the scars
of the jungle fevered, napalm-stained past.

His daughter's married now, and she's offered
him a room. He won't take it because he feels
like a burden dressed in imaginary camo and
way too heavy boots. He thinks of his friends
in uniform and wonders how many of them still
walk. How many of them still speak. How many
of them still breathe on their own.

His medals are tucked into the back pocket
of his jeans. They're tarnished like the onyx
eyes of the ones he killed. When the flashbacks
get bad, he curls up in the fetal position as close
to the wall of the drugstore as possible. The manager
always calls the police. The police always shake
his hand and apologize for something new.

Still, when he's steady, he pulls out two old
photos - one of him with his wife and daughter,
the other of his bedraggled platoon, somehow
smiling beneath the weight of their guns and ammo
and canteens and little knick-knacks. His lips are
chapped, but his whole grin's not too painful. For

the fallen are not all dead, and the dead have not
all fallen. Some have saluted before diving into
the gorge of brutality, leaving the percussion
of their lives under fire intact.