Portrait From The Infantry

A poem by Alan Dugan

He smelled bad and was red-eyed with the miseries

of being scared while sleepless when he said

this: “I want a private woman, peace and quiet,

and some green stuff in my pocket. Fuck

the rest.” Pity the underwear and socks,

long burnt, of an accomplished murderer,

oh God, of germans and replacements, who

refused three stripes to keep his B.A.R.,

who fought, fought not to fight some days

like any good small businessman of war,

and dug more holes than an outside dog

to modify some Freudian’s thesis: “No

man can stand three hundred days

of fear of mutilation and death.” What he

theorized was a joke: “To keep a tight

asshole, dry socks and a you-deep hole

with you at all times.” Afterwards,

met in a sports shirt with a round wife, he was

the clean slave of a daughter, a power brake

and beer. To me, he seemed diminished

in his dream, or else enlarged, who knows?,

by its accomplishment: personal life

wrung from mass issues in a bloody time

and lived out hiddenly. Aside from sound

baseball talk, his only interesting remark

was, in pointing to his wife’s belly, “If

he comes out left foot first” (the way

you Forward March!), “I am going to stuff

him back up.” “Isn’t he awful?” she said.

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• Golden Eyes by Adela Florence Nicolson
• From Behind The Lattice by Adela Florence Nicolson
• Feroza by Adela Florence Nicolson
• Feroke by Adela Florence Nicolson
• Fate Knows No Tears by Adela Florence Nicolson
• Farewell by Adela Florence Nicolson
• Fancy by Adela Florence Nicolson
• Famine Song by Adela Florence Nicolson
• Early Love by Adela Florence Nicolson
• Disappointment by Adela Florence Nicolson
• Deserted Gipsys Song Hillside Camp by Adela Florence Nicolson
• Dedication by Adela Florence Nicolson
• Dedication To Malcolm Nicolson by Adela Florence Nicolson
• Camp Followers Song Gomal River by Adela Florence Nicolson
• Back To The Border by Adela Florence Nicolson
• Au Salon by Adela Florence Nicolson
• Atavism by Adela Florence Nicolson
• Ashore by Adela Florence Nicolson
• Among The Sandhills by Adela Florence Nicolson
• Among The Rice Fields by Adela Florence Nicolson

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