We two were forward on the farthest flank That hoped to outmaneuver and destroy The deep pillbox entrenchment where the Nip Had taken his position and command Of all the open, dead-man beach between. We’d found a little dune and dug us in, And all the long tormented afternoon We lobbed our ineffectual grenades Against the fort foreknowledge of the Jap. When night came on we got the word to hold, But silence and the darkness held us close And I could hear your breathing, feel you near. And then there went through me an echoing roar As when a mountainside of snow and ice Lets loose its frantic grip and tumbles down. And then you said, “You’re trembling.” I said, “Yes.” You asked, “Ya scared?” And I said, “Yes,” again. The silence fell between us for a while. Your hand reached out and rudely grasped my arm. “You’re lying, kid.” Your grip was strong and fierce. You held me there as if to make me shout With pain or ecstasy, and time rushed by Unclocked. You shuddered then and let me go. “You’re lying, kid, and so, sweet God, am I.” The blast of brilliance, flame and heat that came Exploding close beside us threw the sand, And shell, and death and you and me apart. How long we lay half buried none will tell I know I wakened somewhere near the dawn And saw you stretched and saw your trousers torn. I crawled beside you, brushed away the sand That filled your eyes. I held you in my arms, And pressed my mouth to yours as if my breath Within your lungs would bring your arms around me. I know I sobbed, and wept, and cursed, and prayed. My fevered hands I burned beneath your blouse To touch your unresponsive, frigid flesh. And then I knew that you were dead, That you were dead, That you were dead, That we should lie no more! _BURY HIM_ Bury him! Not where the rough, raw earth With his fathers’ bones is filled, Nor bury him there where the old chiefs’ blood On the rich, rolled plain is spilled, And bury him not where he’ll be forgot, With the reason for which he was killed, But, bury him. Bury him. Bury him not in a lonely plot In the midst of the fools who cried Of his race and his face, and forgot every trace Of the reason for which he died, While the heart of the nation’s demoralization Began to ascend as it sighed, “Bury him. Bury him.” Bury him well. Let the bugler tell To the listening wind and the wood How an Indian boy, who was somebody’s joy And the pride of a small neighborhood, Met his death in the yell of a Korean hell, And, returned to his home, was accused Of his race and his place in a nation’s disgrace, And his burial there was refused.