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Long Time Gone (poem)

By W. D. Ehrhart

The boy on the bench on the boardwalk
just got back from the war. He watches
the waves washing the shore, the shore birds
pecking at tiny crabs in the sand
or diving for fish in the shallow surf.
There was sand where he was, but a long
walk to the beach, and the pecking birds
were snipers, the diving birds IEDs.
Now that he's home, and home isn't home,
what will he do with himself?
Maybe he'll go to college. Or trade school.
Maybe he'll re-enlist. He lifts
his gaze to the distant horizon
where sea meets sky at the edge of the world.
He wonders how far he could swim.

—W. D. Ehrhart