Haunting Memory, Take Two

I am reposting this poem because I left out the most important part aside from the fact that there was a typo. In 1968 I was a newspaper reporter assigned to interview a mother who had been told by the Marines that her son had been killed in Vietnam. I wrote this poem last week–obviously a haunting memory.  If you click on this link, http://www.virtualwall.org/iStates.htm, you will be taken to a site where you can look up by hometown, the names of those killed as a result of the Vietnam War. I have two friends on the list.  The poem is about the mental state of someone suffering insurmountable emotional pain. This war, like most, was a horrible mistake. I was drafted into the Army a few months after I interviewed the mother.

The Cats

Waiting

For her son

To come home

She said

Have the cats been fed.

Have the cats been fed?

No, they’re dead,

Have the cats been fed

Was in her head,

Have the cats

Been fed

Is all she said

Now that

Her son was

Dead.