for Mikey O.
They said the Army would be good for you
supply the discipline you needed
and when you came back at 21
with a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart
there was a ceremony at the high school
with speeches and a color guard
and they renamed a park after you
and planted a tree but you didn’t know
how could you at the top of the hill
under a simple stone in the town cemetery
Howie Good, a journalism professor at the State University of New York at New Paltz, is the author of two poetry chapbooks, Death of the Frog Prince (2004) and Heartland (2007), both from FootHills Publishing. He was recently nominated for a Pushcart Prize and is the featured poet in the Autumn 2007 issue of The Grand Rapids Literary Review.