"Let's keep together
    and maybe we'll make it 
  through this."
But never all of us.

Slouched against a fence post
   along the Emmitsburg Road
 a boy:
      "Tell my mother I died a 
  christian death."

The water from the captain's canteen
Leaked through the hole in his guts

He gave the boy his coat

"Tell my mother..."
     it was a small town
The captain knew the boy's mother

  it was a small house

After the charge
After the war
 The captain sat down
       on the porch with his wife
And told her the last words
  of their son

"Tell my mother I died a Christian death."









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