in the jungle

he exchanged

his green beret

for a loin cloth

rode his own elephant

fighting

beside

Montagnard tribesmen

with

Phoenix Program

Project Delta

Pleiku Mike Force

then home to work as a security guard

patrolling JC Penny’s in the mall

Harry never killed a shoplifter

for his country

not a single one

decades later he returned

to visit America’s loss

drink cobra blood

wear a Che Guevara T-shirt

laugh with a North Vietnamese colonel

he met in the street

in Ho Chi Minh City

Harry made peace with himself

and

the enemy

cradled a baby tiger in his arms

fed the cub milk

from a plastic bottle

I still have the picture he sent me

before he died

in Hawaii

happy

at last

finally safe

in the arms of the volcano god