His Best Friend

He knew every inch of it
as well as he knew his own body.
He ate with it lying beside him,
slept with it in the field,
its long slender body against his chest,
between his legs,
cold, hard, and still.

He was the lucky one, the survivor.
Bob, the athlete, had his leg amputated at the hip.
Johhny died instantly, without a sound.
When he came to, his first conscious moment,
like a flash of lightning: I am alive.

"The lucky one."
They said it again and again,
the phalanx of men and women the Army arrayed
to tell him he had "his whole life in front of him."
The ists, he called them —
psychologists, psychiatrists, ministers, priests —
plus chaplains, counselors, advisors, social workers,
all with clean shirts and such concerned eyes.
With their logic they were a living death —
if only he could kill death . . .

Lying on his bed, the sunlight gray
behind the unwashed window panes,
he strokes the stock, the barrel,
runs his fingers over the breech.
He turns it around, brings the round hole closer,
closer, until it blurs to infinity,
and rests it between his eyes.
Like a blind puppy his toe noses toward the trigger guard,
slips inside, pauses,
and pushes.

— Llyn Clague