"Back in the World" ~Dusty

Only one shift and a wake-up
after the short-timer's party
at which I bequeathed
my electric skillet and
ratproof canisters
filled with pizza mix.

I'm so short I'm shadowless.

One last time I check the hooch
(second from the end)
I'm abandoning in favor of
yet another FNG
I will leave her no clue
as to my fate 
or hers
before I hop the chopper
for the airbase and home.

The Nam becomes a pleasant patchwork
of roads and rice paddies,
streams and villages,
one final base camp
a ribbon of beach

"Gentlemen, Continental Airlines
is happy to announce that
we have just left the airspace
of the Republic of Vietnam."

Somewhere over the Pacific
we regain the day we lost
a lifetime ago.