I, now at Carthage. He, shot dead at Rome.

Shipmates last May. “And what if one of us,”

I asked last May, in fun, in gentleness,

“Wears doom, like dungarees, and doesn’t know?”

He laughed, “Not see Times Square again?” The foam,

Feathering across that deck a year ago,

Swept those five words—like seeds—beyond the seas

Into his future. There they grew like trees,

And as he passed them there next spring, they spread

Across his road of fire their sudden shade.

Though he had always scraped his mess-kit pure

And polished piously his barracks floor,

Though all his buttons glowed like cloudless moons

To plead for him in G. I. orisons,

No furlough fluttered from the sky. He will

Not see Times Square—he will not see—he will

Not see Times change; at Carthage (while my friend,

Living those words at Rome, screamed in the end)

I saw an ancient Roman’s tomb and read

“Vale” in stone. Here two wars mix their dead:

Roman, my shipmate’s dream walks hand in hand

With yours tonight (“New York again” and “Rome”),

Like widowed sisters bearing water home

On tired heads through hot Tunisian sand

In good cool urns, and says, “I understand.”

Roman, you’ll see your Forum Square no more;

What’s left but this to say of any war?