Listening to the BBC

Glenn was an adolescent cool boy

We met In seventh grade band

He was smarter than me

Played clarinet better than I played trombone

In science class, we learned Descartes

Tortured animals in the pursuit of knowledge

_____

My friend would tell stories of tying cats tails together

Lighting them on fire to watch them fight

_____

Five decades later, I hear the news from Kyiv

and wonder if he ended up in Vietnam

Went bad on the battlefield

Blamed his actions on superiors

and I lament that maybe, if I had spoken up,

I could have changed history

5-13-22