they called it vietnam

Charlie come home in a box. A flag that weren’t ever his on top. Strangers in strange clothes brung it up the hill. Sit it on his momma’s porch. Like it was somethin’ that ought to be sittin’ there, instead of somewhere else.

Like they knew.

The night before he left, before they come to get him just like they come to bring him, he leaned up against that porch and strummed his guitar. Wearin’ that funny kind of voice. The kind that makes you scared even though it ain’t.

All night he sung. I don’t remember what.

I took the screen off my window, hung my feet out over the sill, and watched the moon on his face from across the road. All gray and blue and empty.

Maybe he died in the dark. No body ever said.

But I never seen him again. And I ain’t felt right for it yet.