[Richard G]

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Unknown Soldier


She lived in a spartan, silver trailer
like Jim Rockford's,
only smaller. It caught fire
with every sunset,
drove her mad in heavy rain.

But all of it was hers
and it was home.

She was no p.i though.
Got no stomach for a mystery
– like why she married him
with his twenty hard years on her,
or where Junior had landed
when he'd gone and left the Service –
too busy getting on with getting on.

But sometimes, in the twilight,
when Summer outstayed its welcome,
glass half-empty, slowly melting ice
she thought that all her life she'd been a soldier
under fire, as the line moved on.
Leaving her again in no man's land.

It never was her war,
it was what she had been born to,
all she did know
she had to fight.
No Surrender,
Semper Fi,
and Al Pacino's last Hoo-ah!

Life is lessons.
Some she did learn well,
though school's barely a memory
– Ten years out of how many? –
and most of what they taught
turned out to be plain wrong. Still,
she studied, got her numbers,
enough to know the price you paid;
and letters, let her read the fine print.

She made sure
her name was right there
on the title.

And if she had regrets
it was she never found the time
to join the library,
or learn to dance,
or know the names of all those pretty stars.

Life gets in the way,
she'd say. So she lived
as best she could;
took the beatings and the bounty
but never once broke down.

She stood up straight
and looked it right back in the eye.

Her heart was set
on Heaven
– Not because the preachers said so,
too self-satisfied and slick to trust –
but because she'd worked so hard
and had never, ever, quit.
Surely that must count for something?
Leave nothing to the atheists.
She didn't believe in them. But she hoped
against all hope,
that one day she would have her Justice.

Now the black car's coming for her,
through the dust and morning sunshine,
with the dew still on the silver,
the skin's cold to the touch.
Maybe someone's making a phone call,
booking a seat out on the next flight:
"No it's nothing, don't you worry,
go back to sleep, I'll call you later."

Or maybe not.

Her affairs are all in order,
they've been that way ten years or more,
the plot picked out after 'The Scare',
she never needed telling twice.
The accounts have all been settled,
there's instructions for the masons,
it's her marks that they'll be making;
ain’t nobody else’s business, no,
she told them exactly what to write.



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