Six O'Clock News Poem by Eric Cockrell

he sat in the parking lot,
a Vietnam vet, breathing hard,
fog rising in the cold....

across the way two kids
were getting ready to raise
the flag... just another day....

they'd been married for 30 years.
he met her when he was thirty,
and she was just sixteen....

now he was over sixty,
and his health was bad....
and she'd been fooling around

with a man her own age.
he just couldnt see, just couldnt
believe... nowhere to go.

he watched her walk from the
building to her car, fumbling with keys.
walking up behind her, he called

her name... she turned, a look of horror,
just a deer caught in the headlights.
he pulled the pistol and shot her....

before her body even fell
he put the barrel in his mouth,
and fired again....

the two kids stopped, flag
at about half mast.... sunlight
barely piercing the fog....

America dead, two bodies strewn
in a parking lot... another feed
for the six o'clock news!