Being Deployed Poem by David McLansky

So you're going now
My adopted daughter,
Your duffel's packed,
You've got your orders;
Off to a base in Afghanistan
To prep the soldiers
Dead in that land;
So their remains
Can be returned,
Shot and crushed
Dirt blood stained;
Their legs blown off
Their arms dismembered
In battles won
And unremembered;
May you return
With all your parts,
Your skin unburned,
A beating heart,
Your mind unfazed
By horrors seen,
Nor ears ablaze
With silent screams.

I find it meet
And all too proper
That bodies sent
By tank and chopper
Be recomposed
By you my beauty,
You were always one
To know your duty.

....