Dixie Cup Memorial

As this holiday weekend begins, it’s easy to forget that Memorial Day is not about the long weekend box office competition. Thoughts of the sad state of VA applications(a backlog of over 800,000) for

Dixie Cup Memorial
                  by Odin Roark

How small it is
this bottom of the Dixie cup
looking skyward
holding high the torch
the unemployment check
of another kind

Held aloft with no regrets
Half full
Half empty
All the same
Someone had to shoulder the orders

Now in desert camo-dress
his prosthetic hand holds forth
watching fingers pass over
some manicured
with pennies
some scabbed and scarred
with singles
even children's innocent fingers
dropping their nickels and dimes

Many have acknowledged this
His back-home identity
His calling card
His shingle
His name plate

The mind huddles close now
few copper and silver
no blankets of green
no ingots of gold

A note floats downward
swathing reality

Thank you for your service

Would you like a job?

What are your skills?

Can you relocate?

Sure
he says
his eyes lingering
upon his severed legs
each knee projecting its solitary reality
Purple Heart pinned securely to the right

Just let me gather today's windfall
2 pennies
1 nickel
3 quarters
1 subway token

Relocating again

Travel

Enough to get me there

Pocketing the Dixie cup
his hook and knuckles pull forward
surging his mover's dolly
transporting Faith's hidden hope

Ahead
looking back
his benefactor strides onward
his missing arm yet another lost appendage of honor
his smile a projection of comaradery
his Ooh-rah a respect never ignored

Not far he says

Not far