pentagon
in country the My Lai tragedy
occurred before my time
and the lesser Seymour Hersh story
on Ky Chanh, Quang Tin Province,
was before my time as well
but my patrol route
on Highway One
was through Ky Chanh
and I remember once near Ky Chanh
seeing children play with a stick and ball
with what looked like a pitcher's mound and a home plate
and then there were four bases
now I wish I had stopped
taught them something about the game
but that would mean time travel
you can't get there from now
———————————
Michael Casey
Check Points
Aastra Press, 2011
Michael Casey was born in 1947 in Lowell, Massachusetts. After graduating from Lowell Technological Institute in 1968, Casey was drafted into the US Army and served as a military policeman in Missouri and Vietnam’s Quang Ngai province. His first collection of poetry, Obscenities, was published in 1972 and chosen for the Yale Younger Poets Award. The poems were largely inspired by his time in Vietnam.
