When that evil motherfucker Joe Cool Finally got it in the Ashua Valley – a green Gassy stomach wound that made him mad, then scared, then gentle While we watched – we shrugged and added a rule To our already-big catalog of rules: don’t be mean; Don’t be evil, or you’ll get it like Joe Cool - You need rules like that. Only Green Billy cried. But Billy Was new in country, and cried often. Then we found Billy splayed out by the assassin like an Oriental Jesus on two bamboo poles one rainy, chilly Morning in June. We made more rules: don’t be soft, and Don’t be evil, or you’ll get it. But really It wasn’t until Silent John the Texan, black and Bigger-than-life, caught a stray shot that whined Suddenly out of a bright August day, took most of his dental Work skittering off into the bracken, We began to see the pattern: the strong silent kind, The mean one, the greenhorn – all the characters. Then back in Camp we drew into ourselves, in the spaces Of sentient quiet that inhabit the nighttime jungle – Frightened of distinction – when kids at home, a sentimental Love for German opera, for all we knew, were basis Enough for the karma to get you. The next bungle Was sensitive Lieutenant Caffrey; then the racist Sergeant hit a trip-wire mine. And when Danny Castanetti from Brooklyn got it, we frightened Ourselves thinking mere ethnicity was enough for the regimental Curse – until, pulling his throat-slit, whitened Corpse from the sleeping bag, we saw he had on girls’ panties – Even pantyhose. We laughed, but it was uncanny How it could root you out. Me – I’d sympathize With the twitchy rat-faced kid who bit it The next week, the eternally-optimistic Tennesseean on rental From headquarters, the couple of guys Who were always stoned – all died. But I knew it’d Not get me. The young writer, of course, never dies... - He wrote that one night, years after, Shivering in a cold house in the suburbs under The weight of several beers, the tv’s canned laughter Rattling through the empty rooms, and entirely alone – Only stopping when he got to the end to wonder If it was true – and if he wouldn’t rather Have died there, fully-rounded, than coming home, Without character enough to kill. Or maybe there was not Any kind of slantwise logic to it except what you brought There and clung to when everyone died, and kept in stories known And retold so long, you finally forgot They maybe weren’t really your own.