Dear Plaster Saint




Lois suffered so bad sometimes,

too much thinking

and in war time no less,

hosiery: cigarettes: midnights:

more than she could handle

I guess and here in the letter

from the newly awarded

gunnery sergeant,

onion skin like an old Japanese

painting, translucent wanderer

miraculous and buried

in how many a drawer,

guilty prisoner of time

finally confesses on a cold

winter’s day

to sixty quarts of Golden

Wedding Whiskey,

wanting to wet

his new stripes down

sic Gloria transit mundi,

as ever yours,

January 4, 1945

Lawrence.