For the Stryker Brigade Combat Team

Behind me angelic nurses,
white limbed,
white winged doves of Aesculapius,
ply their trade of needles
to an intravenously entrapped footslogger
shot through the bowels at St. Lo
who lingers across the aisle
like a palpitating vegetable.
That crucial battle
not even his medals
can help him recall.

His days are nights now
and his familiar faces
touching him occasionally
with affectionate lips
are as intimate as wallpaper,
while I cling tightly
to my distant uplands
longing for absences,
wanting to shake my fist at God.

Editor’s note: Jack recently took these photographs at the Kutztown armory.