In a jungle, on patrol
he stepped on a mine and died.
But not right away,
three more days
on a ship in Tonkin Bay
with no one to record his agony,
no one to take down his words.
Huck and Holden,
Robin and Billy Budd,
a myth to real to last.
Melville said, unless you sailed round
Cape Horn in a storm .
And Hemingway said, unless
youšve lived through a war .
And he believed them.