"Operation Buffalo":Regret
    
   We're being pounded
   by artillery, rockets, mortars
   and beau-coup small arms' fire.
  
   We know Bravo Company is wiped out,
   and it seems that Alpha Company is too.
  
   Soon they'll mass and assault our little perimeter
   and that will be the end of it.
  
   I've already prayed
   for my parents, my grandparents,
   my girl and my soul.
  
   Now I'm hoping
   I last long enough
   to kill lots of gooks.
   I've got everything ready:
   loaded magazines, my grenades laid out within reach,
   and I've fixed my bayonet.
  
   It's over 120 degrees
   and I feel as if I might just burst into flames.
  
   I'm so thirsty
   from the heat,
   from my nearly uncontrollable fear,
   but we've given all our water to
   the ever-increasing number of wounded.
  
   As I try not to think
   of my thirst and prepare
   for what I am certain is my impending death,
   I am suddenly overcome
   with profound regret.
  
   At this moment
   it seems unbearably sad
   and unfair
   that I will never
   taste a drink of
   cold water again.

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copyright © 1996 by John Musgrave, from his book "Under a Flare-lit Sky: Vietnam Poems," all rights reserved.

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