Vietnam Memorial Wall, 1990

Lines etched in black marble
once burned beneath your fingertips,
linking you to lives stopped short,
silent as stilled clocks;
you could neither save them
nor accompany them but
you did not escape the battle.

Pain became your shadow.

At thirty-nine, you tried to join
their ranks, the rope failing
when your wife returned
off schedule, her hands fumbling
to bring you down, her voice
sharp as glass, calling you back.

At forty, you took the keys
to the red Miata and smiled
for a family snapshot,
their birthday gift at last
a fast route to the front line
you’d seen on the horizon for years.

The letters of your name
do not flow and curve
along a gleaming marble wall
but those who knew you
write them there, aging hands
moving inside late-night memories
laced with endless shots of bourbon.


Peggy Hammond’s poetry is featured or forthcoming in The Lyricist, Oberon Poetry, High Shelf Press, San Antonio Review, Inklette, West Trade Review, Rogue Agent, and Ginosko Literary Journal. Her full-length stage play, A Little Bit of Destiny, was produced by OdysseyStage Theatre in Durham, North Carolina.