Korean Echo
by Tom Sheehan
My turn had come;
Billy Pigg, helmet lost,
shrapnel alive in him,
blood free as air,
dying in my arms.
Billy asked a blessing, had
none since birth. My canteen
came his font. Then he said,
“I never loved anybody.
Can I love you?”
My father told me,
his turn long gone downhill;
“Keep water near you, always.”
He thought I’d be a priest before
all this was over,
not a lover.
###
Sheehan served in the 31st Infantry Regiment, Korea 1951 and graduated from Boston College in 1956. His books are Epic Cures; Brief Cases, Short Spans; A Collection of Friends; From the Quickening. He has 24 Pushcart nominations, and 365 stories on Rope and Wire Magazine. Recent eBooks from Milspeak Publishers include Korean Echoes, 2011, nominated for a Distinguished Military Award and The Westering, 2012, nominated for a National Book Award. His newest eBooks, from Danse Macabre/Lazarus/Anvil, are Murder at the Forum, an NHL mystery novel, Death of a Lottery Foe, Death by Punishment and An Accountable Death His work is in Rosebud (6th issue), The Linnet’s Wings (6th issue), Ocean Magazine (8th issue), and many internet global sites and print magazines/anthologies. Due for mid-year publication from Pocol Press is a collection of stories, In the Garden of Long Shadows. Most all his books are on Amazon Kindle or Nook.