Author: Jeff Coomer
Location: Baltimore, Maryland
Jeff Coomer lives near Baltimore, Maryland. After a lengthy career as a technology executive at two Fortune 500 companies, he is now enjoying life as a recovering overachiever and Buddhist practitioner in what little is left of the Maryland woods.
On the Occasion of the Passing of a Medal of Honor Winner
I lay their bodies side by side
in my mind, the 11 German soldiers
he single-handedly dispatched
on a bitter February morning
in the war’s last days,
one two three four
five bodies in the first group,
one two three four
five bodies in the second group,
and one left over.
I give them fatal wounds from
the 175 bullets and 11 grenades
he single-handedly dispatched
in his charge of their position,
5 wounds to the chest
3 to the abdomen
3 to the head.
I give them ages,
none more than 20,
and I give them mothers and sisters.
I pray that they were warm
and had something to eat
on their last night.
On this, the occasion
of his passing at age 89
from a heart attack
in his home in Illinois,
I give each of them a burial
with a piece of his honors.
