Vets In limbo

As Veteran's Day approaches, it’s a time to remember with some prosetry the sad state of VA applications where a backlog of over 800,000 for entitled benefits remains in limbo.

Vets In Limbo
            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 own missing arm yet another lost appendage of honor,
his smile a projection of comradery,
his Ooh-rah a respect never ignored.

"Not far," he says.

"Not far."