Laos (a Corpsman's report)

It seems to me that the sweetish
foul odor of the jungle will stay
in my nostrils forever, or at least
until the day I die and join my buddies,
Consider these facts if you will:

Some 206 bones make up
the adult’s fragile frame, one
that a mortar shell can fragment
into twice that number.

An enemy’s partial remains
spread out in Laos’ jungle rot;
the rest hangs suspended
in dense growth among orchids.

Days later, we went out again,
in search of some of our own.
Again we passed
that shattered skeleton.

How quickly the forest
consumes this feast.
The man’s hollow skull,
stripped of flesh and hair,
looks small--like a monkey’s.

I wonder how it could have held
such powerful emotions:
dreams, and, no doubt—
desperate cunning.

Now its empty eye sockets
reflect none of that
as they stare at the rags
hanging in the tree canopy.

Some morbid prick considered
bagging the skull for a souvenir, but
then he turned away
and looked in the direction
of approaching small arms fire.
Seconds later, he too
gazed skyward with dying eyes.