Thirty-six years after the fact

there’s a hole in my soul.

Didn’t know it

for a long, long time.

Thought I was invincible.

Marched through Washington

back in the day —

me and the other Vets:

cutting images from the jungles of Nam,

pasting their ragged and bloody pictorial

onto the album of pomp and circumstance.

Dream-stepping down Pennsylvania Ave.

onto the covers of magazines

and newspapers’ front pages…