My Brother
Your name traces easy
across the smooth, black granite,
Kurt C. Hussmann.
No easier though than
your warm blood seeping into
Asian soil that long ago
November day.
"Fix me up, doc", you said
and nothing more
before you died
at 21,
rather young
to go so far away.
Two designated messengers of death
came calling on our mother.
Surely to God,
they have the wrong address
she reasoned, the wrong boy.
Her son was not
for cannonfodder,
O bitter, bitter
words of truth.
I touch the Wall.
Then recall
how many games of ball
we played,
wrestling, hugging
the way boys do,
living how we lived
before you up and went to war.
It's been 40 years
Little Man, since mom called
and told me you were gone.
I go for years myself
as if it's all O.K.
Then out of the blue
My Brother,
I go to missing you.
Rex Hussmann
April 2, 2008
