Miles of Bones
"58,000 suicides
is a lot of bullets
wrecked car's
ruined veins
dead bottles
kids without fathers
American flags
& miles of dirt dug
58,000
the number of Vietnam
veteran suicides...
it equals the names
on the Wall
today: 7/09/91 8:10 p.m.
tomorrow
we'll exceed it
more suicide
than combat death
If you can't feel
this pain
you're already
dead
all these
bodies
floating
home."
-- by Bill Shields. Anthologized in "From Both Sides Now: The Poetry of the Vietnam War and Its Aftermath," Edited by Philip Mahony.
Editor's note: Sadly, of course, since the time this poem was written, many more Vietnam veterans and other combat veterans have taken their own lives.
