there was a time
after the tet offensive when i was doing
three or four funerals
a week for extra pay in the national guard unit
that i was assigned to
but this one guy they brought back that july
the heat was so terrible
that when we started to carry the casket out of the house
i don't know what happened
but the sun must have got me and i passed out i guess
which i don't remember at all but what
i do recall is waking up
on the kitchen floor and the dead marine's mama
had my head
cradled on her lap and she was dipping
a washrag into a pan of water to cool my forehead
and i guess she didn't know i was in the infantry
and just doing it for the money
because she gave this beautiful smile and just kept whispering
there now baby semper fi semper fi
till i huddled up closer and took hold of her hand and just
busted out and cried

James Lineberger is a former screenwriter, sometime playwright, and full-time poet. His poetry has appeared in Berkely Poetry Review, The Centennial Review; Coal City Review; Exquisite Corpse; Hanging Loose; Hayden's Ferry Review; The New Laurel Review; New York Quarterly; Ontario Review; Oxford Magazine; Prairie Schooner; Snake Nation Review; Sonora Review; Verse; and a number of online publications.