"I'd sooner be a fallen pine cone this winter
In a cradle of cold New England rock,
Less hurt in it than nineteen years.
What an exit! Stage left, fronds waving,
Cut down running my ass off at a tree line.
I'm thinking, as I hear my chest
Sucking air through its brand new nipple,
I bought the ticket, I hope I drown fast,
The pain is all in living."
-- Excerpt from "Morning -- A Death," by Basil T. Paquet. Anthologized in "Carrying the Darkness: American Indochina -- The Poetry of the Vietnam War," edited by W.D. Ehrhart.
