Closure

Why do they go back
to the jungle,
to Vietnam?
“Closure,” Bernie says,
his hand white-knuckling
a Yuengling Black and Tan.
Would you ever go back?
I never got to ask him that.
Thyroid cancer and Agent Orange
took him away
faster than mortar rounds
decimating a village.
“Goodbye, buddy,”
were his last words to me.
Maybe one day
I’ll go back to Rome,
pretend the vastness
doesn’t scare me,
or die with Burroughs
in Tangier,
chasing the dragon
to the bitter end.
But I think I’ll be
just like Bernie,
hanging on to life
with all my strength
until the voices
tell me to let go.