Fathers & Sons

I sent him my old jungle fatigues,

      now, again, in fashion, and he

            wrote back talking of living hells;

                  twelve years old and talking of

                        living hells. I explained that,

being Air Force, there wasn't so

      much of Hell, just drugs, booze,

            boredom and bad pizza, and that,

                  if he wanted to know more about war,

                        he'd have to ask his grandfather.

(Arkansas Magazine, Arkansas Democrat, May 17, 1987;
Photograph by "The Choker," 1970, Phan Rang, Vietnam.)