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On Returning From His Year Of Service
by Earl Coleman

He went bananas when he learned she’d had a lover
in his very bed, the one they tucked together, laid
just right, with corners made the way the Corps
had taught him, taut, and then went off to do
his tour in safety in Spokane, smoking weed
and randying around with nothing else to do except
protect his vital body parts for her, and kids they’d
have as soon as she could find a job that paid more
money than a check-out clerk, and he got situated
in some better place than pumping gas for Jones,
and who knew where they’d go if they had dough,
not hang around Penticton in the asshole of the world,
but then to come back home and find he’d served
his country and been fucked! It wasn’t right.