The Wall (on the eve before its dedication)

It was made the worse by the floodlights.

Pillaring forth against the black night,
pallor white light shattering its silence;

Made the rain seem to come down in steady throngs,
pelting the already saturated grass,

It ricocheted like wild/fire on a lake.

* * *

JESUS CHRIST, Mike cursed
as we got not a third of the way
in from where the names
of the Dead & Missing had begun.

I started to let out a nervous laugh
but drew it back noticing her instead:

Standing apart/off to one side in the rain,
she preferred to mourn her losses alone;

Trying not to look too conspicuous
she stared not at the large marble edifice before us,
nor its endless columns of names,
or the wreaths and flags laid at its feet.

But, rather, at the man in the olive green tunic,
worn and faded with time;
in whose shadow she now stood.

His hands sunk deep inside his pants pockets
as he walked the full length of the wall
never pausing for more than an instant.

She trying to keep pace with his/
he scanned down the names as he went.

Acknowledging no one,
he'd move quickly from one stone to the next,
his hands sunk inside his pockets deeper still.

The woman and he now three feet away paused.

* * *

Coming into range now
the floodlights' glare blared down at us.

Its generator at full idle made it seem
as if the whole steel construct was about to take off,
like choppers in the night
in search of even more dead and wounded.

We tried to place ourselves
in a different time and space but couldn't.

Exasperated, I gave up;
breaking the silence between us –

"Most of them were younger than you and I are now," I murmured.

As Mike just stood there rain running across his brow
reading off the last name -- Jesse Calbre.

We finally reached the end,
though the walk back to the car
was no more the better for it;

Always thought that war memorials
like gravestones were meant for closure
perhaps in time/but for now . . .

We groped in silence for memories
never completely ours
and felt all the more empty for it.

I spotted them again walking to their car
and watched as he slid into the driver's seat
leaving her to open the passenger's side door
and close it tight behind her;

And, as they sped on into the dark,
I caught myself wondering
whether Jesse would ever be the last casualty
of the Indochina police action.

Or, just the last to have his name chiseled into stone.