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Sunset Threnody She's here again. There leaning against the basement window where the sun crouches like a tiger. Shaking the ice in her glass to beckon the waitress for another Tom Collins, she knows an old wound starts to tingle close to the heart. Midwestern prom queen, Army nurse, now working the graveyard shift at St. Luke's emergency ward, sweet thing for every Vietnam vet. How many faces are hers!1 I've unhealed myself for her eyes. All the close calls are inside my head bright as a pinball machine, & I'm a man fighting with myself. Yes, no, yes. I'm crouched there in that same grassy gully watching medevac choppers glide along the edge of the South China Sea, 5i down to where men run with a line of green canvas stretchers as twilight sinks into the waves. I'm still there & halfway to her table where she sits holding the sun in her icy glass. 5* ...

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