Six Kinds of Tough Shit

D.F. Brown
Jungle
Photo by Rohit Tandon

The given has taken
another warrior, another kid really, 
doofus fuck from 3rd platoon,
whose only job was breathing 

but isn’t now except in gasping 
gurgles from a neck wound then
moaning too much morphine and 
strapped to a jungle penetrator
dangles from that chopper 

lift his ass out
when the cable snaps 
drops him forty fuckin’ feet  

through triple canopy treetops
so now, snagged 20 feet above the ground,
someone must climb for the body

D.F. Brown was born and raised in the Missouri Ozarks. He served as a combat medic with the First of the Fourteenth Infantry in Vietnam, 1969–1970. 

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