By: Tom Sheehan

Friends found Jamesie by dark tracks,
between home and the last-pint draught
of wine from a pseudo-canteen
soldered firmly to his hip, the left,

where stray shot from fanatic Hun
bore in. Beside the silver rail
they found him, gone down, leaf,
grain, mere slip of grass as pale

as mother’s duster, pillow case,
in ivory, crocheted by deft hand.
Uncle, documented by boots
upright on solemn bed, a band

of ice nails through thick ankles;
benchmark limp from Hun’s shot
headlined in one rubber heel,
sign that blood and bone had caught

the hot fragments. Yet upright boots
were iceberg tips on bogus bed,
tall gray ghosts on glaciered sea,
frozen peaks to death had wed.

Below boot hills, sea level down,
the ice-clad corpse of lovely James,
St. Mihiel limper, soft Hun target,
world class drunk, host of names,

but lovely to me, oh but lovely.
He twirled brash brogue, bore dialect,
rolled meaty salads on his tongue,
choice were cuts of kingly texts,

Irisher’s romance, well of roots,
fixed fables of the steerage-strapped,
sea deaths, bodies canvassed to waves,
two redhead sisters there entrapped.

Lonely the night of uncle’s death,
like self, finally, shorn of breath,
magnet piece to the hidden pole
pulling forever my sheerest soul.