Corpses

Poem by Thomas Lambert. Art by Morgane Xenos

Outside Kuwait City (1991)

We came upon them mid-day
in a rush for shelter from the petrol rain,
three corpses upright in an armored personnel carrier
as crisp as dime-store cigars.

Oil fires illuminated a blast zone surrounding the vehicle,
casting a perverse half-light
over the living and dead.

Some Marines took photos with the corpses,
souvenirs for the living back home.
I kept watch through the scorched, steel turret
and thought of my Grandfather lying embalmed
in a casket in Enid, Oklahoma.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

I was sixteen when Grandpa died
and recalled him displayed like some wax mannequin
stuffed with ice and vinegar.

The mortician overdid Grandpa’s makeup
which cracked like desert topsoil around his hairline.
I half-expected him to rise up
and scold the adults in the room
for displaying him that way.

The preacher’s pontificating ran on for eternity,
and I experienced a skepticism swelling in me
toward claims that the dead reanimate
in a celestial paradise
surrounded by childhood pets
and deceased loved ones.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Staring back at those unfortunate soldiers
trapped in a fiery death-box of American military might,
the poison rain hammered away
at our fragile notion of youth’s invincibility.

The thunder of approaching artillery
rattled our momentary reprieve.

An offhanded sentiment offered
by our most-junior squad member,
a boot private from Encinitas, California,
proved a more convincing eulogy
than Grandpa received.

“Sucks to be them,” he said.

****

Thomas Lambert was born and raised in the Midwest, USA. A former U.S. Marine and Desert Storm veteran, he studied Creative Writing & Philosophy at The Universities of Kansas and East Anglia. His poetry has been featured in Pearl, Di-Verse-City, Bluing The Blade, Beyond Words, The American Dissident and other publications. Lambert lives in Dripping Springs, Texas with two daughters.