Matt Borczon is a nurse and Navy sailor from Erie
Pa, he served in the busiest combat hospital in Afghanistan in 2010-2011
he writes about his experiences there and about the difficulty
returning home. His work has appeared in 1947, Big Hammer the pressure
press, busted Dharma dissident voice as well as many other small press
publications.
Elegy
I hope
you will
burn my
body in
an Edinboro
field load
my ashes
in a
box car
for a
short ride
back to
town pour
them out
in the
back yard
where they
can stick
to the
sweat on
all my
ghosts the
legless
and armless
the soldiers
shut down
by depression
or manic
and crazy
the marines
dead by
their own
hands all
crowded into
the space
left by
my life
where they
can sit
idle
because I
may have
wanted
to die
but I
don’t want
to leave
until the
dead carry
the wounded
far far
away.
October 2015
Choose your fate
In the
Navy we
say choose
your rate
choose
your fate
so I
thought
I don’t
know what
I thought
I thought
I would
help not
hurt people
not shoot
soldiers but
treat their
wounds
only I
never stopped
to think
that bullet
holes are
not smaller
or less
bloody if
you don’t
see them
go in
an amputated
leg is
no lighter
to carry
or easier
to find
if you
do not
see the
explosion
the children
do not
look less
wounded
because
they are
not mine
I chose
this
5 years
ago and
now it
chooses me
nightly
whole or
in pieces.
October 2015
small good thing
Some days
I need
to look
for the
small good
thing I
can hold
in my
hand catch
in my
eye stick
in my
head feel
on my
skin it
pushes the
ghosts to
the back
of my
life and
makes the
wounded
sit on
the side
to wait
for a
helicopter
ride out
of my
nightmares
or so
I hope
so I
listen for
old Beatles
songs on
the radio
birds in
the trees
the email
from an
old friend
the good
poem the
free sandwich
the hug
I don’t
ask for
anything
I can
find or
make beg
borrow or
steal
anything at
all to
remind myself
that the
war is
really over
and I
will someday
make it
home.
October 2015
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