"Mortality connects from eye to eye"

Sunday Morning Veterans

Old men and women in their Sunday best
Embalmed and ready for a funeral
Flung frightened from the dying restaurant
Now brace themselves for this their weekly test

Having struggled with stall and urinal
Bent double blinking into light to haunt
The stumbling sidewalk to the parking lot
Of Cadillacs and Lincolns with their flags
Reminding them of wars which they once fought
Fumbling with wallets and wrestling with bags
Fight to keep themselves together because
Today ought to be like last Sunday was

I smell the mothballs as they stagger by

A victory parade of heroes past
Who know this Sunday might well be their last
When our eyes meet we understand and smile
Although we weep within and feel the shame
Of how we are and have been for awhile
We know each other then if not by name
Mortality connects from eye to eye
We march as march we must until we die

They return my salute then wonder where
They left those cars by which somehow they came
(But it was memory which brought them there)
These Sunday morning veterans and I
As comrades know all combat is the same

We shake our heads at that and then we sigh
And wait until next week to say goodbye

+Steven Curtis Lance



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