Memorial Day my neighbor, his big feet in sneakers, hobbles as fast as he can across the street breathless with news. his mouth seems huge to me, he keeps mispronouncing my name jerking his head up the street as he almost screams: John is dead. John killed himself. now the other neighbors sift from their houses-- shift from foot to foot one in her striped nightgown stands in the doorway and keeps saying, a suicide a Purple Heart Vietnam Vet, stands on his maimed legs and tells us, John’s Death Mission for that a man could kill himself— flying a helicopter to hunt, ferry the dead, the mutilated inside I wander aimlessly from room to room sit and stare out the windows see that long summer evening slowly ending