Breakages
(for D-Day)

Monuments
Stand
This is the day
They reach
And many of us
Reach with them
Which was
A multinational effort
You know
North Americans
Europeans
Against their own
Our own
A sibling conflict as
Such conflicts are
Each
And every
Tragic time

And can you imagine
The ranks included
Homosexuals
Bisexuals
How many immigrants
And refugees
Those whose English
Or a native language
Wasn’t easy
Even the homeless
Even the criminal

Maybe the left-handed
Too
Also the atheist
Agnostic
Muslim
Hindu
Shinto
All other codes
With those
Who had nothing official
To adhere to

The young
The beautiful
The misformed
Too
All those who hearts
Were broken
On the beaches

And what happened to their bodies
And their minds
And maybe touched
Their patriotism
Though the
Preponderance
Moved forward

I’m sorry
You want
To think
Of everyone
Involved
Of all the same
The same

But what we know
For sure
Is all were one
Were one
That day
And in the days
Succeeding
As the world was taken
Back into its own

And
By the end
Of the year
The human race
Could after years
More freely
Run its own

C L Couch


“I’d never seen so many dead men”
voice of a D-Day veteran

Photo by David Hohl on Unsplash