Contributor: Donal Mahoney

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You think it's easy,
embalming bodies
in these nightmares
I have every night,

bodies a vulture
wouldn't touch,
bodies rotting
decades later

in the afterglow
of Agent Orange,
bodies found in
villages and fields

in Vietnam where
I have never been
except in nightmares.
I'm Monsanto Man,

chemist nonpareil,
retired now,
but working hard
embalming bodies

for eternity
in nightmares
I know now
will never end.


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Donal Mahoney lives in St. Louis, Missouri.