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Tet 2019 (poem)

By Larry Kerschner

in this year of the Empire 2019 February 5th
Tết Nguyên Đán, which is Sino-Vietnamese
Feast of the First Morning of the First Day
may last from seven to nine days

I remember Tet 1968, when (despite Walter Cronkite)
Westmoreland was claiming the war nearly won
after a firefight I was patrolling on foot
in the Central Highlands and found
a Vietnamese man who must have had
15 bullet holes in his body
struggling to crawl away

being an American god
I felt that he had no chance to live
so I put him out of his misery
with several rounds through the head

Cronkite said the only rational way out
would be for us to negotiate not as victims
but as an honorable people
who lived up to their pledge
to defend democracy
who did
the best they could