THE OTHER ME
The D-Day vet says
He never left me.
About the German he killed
After arriving by sea
Emptying his bullets
Upon the pillbox.
He said, I see his arms raising,
Then his falling off.
Could it be that blood
Is too red to spill willingly,
That one must be mad
To do it sanely?
He says he learned
In a museum to forgive
Himself, to let him go.
What the Nazis did.
Otherwise he’d still be
Holding on to him. His enemy.
The man he shot dead,
Whom he called his other me.
—Poets Respond
June 6, 2014
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Alejandro Escudé: “This is a response the anniversary of the Normandy Landings in WWII. I heard an interview with a vet that just wrecked me for a while.” (website)
