Dear Jane, Our Homecoming Sucked

Blond forbidden prick tease fruit
the stuff of celluloid wet dreams
got religion
or politics
or laid on the left
and went to Hanoi
where big guns
coughed
and American flyers
went down in twisted blood-smeared
burning pieces;
GI s licked sun-chapped
lips and scrawled free
on the upper right
and wrote
their own forbidden fruit
letters I’m OK chow’s bad it’s hotter than
your backseat sweetness
stay faithful I’ll kill Commies
for Christ
and then
Jane came to straddle those big guns
and the boys took
it as a great big Dear John
’cause when they got home
pretty
hippy-dippy tie-dyed girls
spat out baby killer
and their moms looked
questions like did you
did you, did you ever
kill or cry or bleed or rape
or whatever it is you do at war,
my son?
And their girlfriends nagged
you aren’t the same, not very
nice, really, why can’t  you
be here for me?

So, dear Jane, we’ll put it all on you
instead of looking
in our teary hearts
and offer the ache
to loved ones
risking betrayal all over again.

Constance Lee Menefee
Copyright 2000

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