Little Boy Man

by Lenora Rain-Lee Good

You wear a pair of camos, size small,
still too big for your slight frame,
but they are yours. You wear my old
combat boots, ready to fight
all wars, real or imagined. After all,
you know how it’s done—you’ve
seen all the Rambo movies several
times over, you’ve flown as Top Gun.
(You generously left John Wayne for me.)

I watch you strut down the street
surrounded by your platoon,
on the lookout for the enemy
who is known to set up ambushes
in the imaginary jungle, the village streets,
wherever the war of today takes place.

Near-mortally-wounded by
ambush in our front yard,
you manage to drag yourself,
and your equally wounded
buddies out of danger, behind
the rhododendron, then charge
the enemy behind the lilac bunker,
take out that nest of machine
gunners. You and your buddies
have saved the day, saved your mothers,
saved your country, and perhaps even
more importantly, saved your lunch.

I wonder, how brave will you be
if you ever face the actuality? I wore
the uniform in the hope you never will.
I hope you will never hear the scream
of bullets, the cries of the wounded, the shriek
of rockets, the explosions of bombs.
I hope you never get a snootful of the copper
stench of blood as it flows freely
from gaping wounds, the stink of bowel
and bladder released by fear,
or pain       or death.

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Lenora Rain-Lee Good is a veteran of the Women’s Army Corps (Viet Nam era) and the Air National Guard. She is the author of three and a third published books of poetry—Blood on the Ground (Redbat Books, 2016), Marking the Hours (Cyberwit.net 2020), and The Bride’s Gate and Other Assorted Writings (Cyberwit.net, 2021). She co-authored Reflections: Life, the River, and Beyond (KDP 2020), with Jim Bumgarner and Jim Thielman, hence “the third.” She may be reached through her website https://coffeebreakescapes.com

“Little Boy Man” was written about her son, who wore her combat boots to play soldier in his youth.