Filling The Gap Poem by Martin Lochner

i found comfort in the brown paper
wrapped packages his mother send
a decoded contents saying come home
oreo biscuits, shortbread and honeycomb
the extent of the care was further displayed
with a pack of wet wipes and tooth picks
a letter written by her hand grieving her
boy’s absence.

astounding consistency and fortnightly deliveries
of a mother’s love for her infantry babe.
nice fellow he was allowing me to be his audience
when he read those letters and sharing those hand made
delights out of a Kentucky kitchen, getting a fine taste for
home baked Yankee treats.

mine was somewhere dozing off his Zim –Zam on a pavement or fuelling his spirits in a cheap bar with Smokey
who is Alice?
no letters and no concern and if she could she would maybe
send me a bottle of Jack and some Lucky strike smokes with a letter saying
do you remember those days when we got spirited together and how you strummed your lazy guitar playing Crackling rosie?
unhappening ode to a spectacular absent mommy.

They shot that mommys boy just outside the town of Kinshasa and while he was bleeding himself empty through his neck, I imagined the report of his death and the memorial despair of a mother
breaking down and never recovering over her loss.....darn if ever one could cry over me like that!

Taking the bulk of his letters with no MP around me i swapped his dog tag with an other dead soldier and ditched his one.
Assuming the role of her loving son, the letters came and was returned with the same lovingness a good son should posses and i ate the contents of the parcel she send.