Doug Anderson: It Ain’t Over

Some things are over before they’re over.
A bad marriage. A bad war.
It got so a squad would go out,
call in checkpoints as if on the move,
sit down in a ravine and wait it out.
Down south they’d started killing officers
while they slept, a grenade rolled under them
by men who’d had enough of being sent
out into Hell for other people’s money.
The friend that writes you he loves you
but can no longer abide the war.
A fist full of joints soaked in opium
cost a dollar, starts looking pretty good.
When I left, I thought I’d died
and the afterlife was made up
of clean sheets and food that didn’t come
from a can left over from another war.
Couldn’t sleep. Even when a woman held my heart.

Copyright 2016 Doug Anderson. From Horse Medicine.