Going Home

Near Kirkuk
five soldiers watch
or work
while two wheel
the blood-soaked
gurney from the
inflated O.R. The
sergeant’s leg
amputated
and discarded, time
will tell if
he
will
be
as well.

__________
Acknowledgement: New York Times Magazine, “The Wounded,” by Johnny Dwyer. March 27, 2005, pp. 24+.  Photographs by Lynsey Addario/Corbis. This poem first appeared in This Open Eye: Seeing What We Do (2006).

Copyright © 2018 by Reggie Marra. From Killing America: Our United States of Ignorance, Fear, Bigotry, Violence and Greed (forthcoming, September 2018).