Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
Dispatches
for the Colonial Office
A Corporal Who
Would Never Be a Sergeant
He was a corporal who would
never be a sergeant
In a Palmach squad that would
never be recognized
By the Palmach or by the
Haganah.
He was a rabbi of the rocks
and rubble and roads
He would never be recognized
as a rabbi
He loved a curly-haired girl
who would never marry him
And was friends with a little
feral dog
Who crept out to him from behind
the ruins
There was blood that called
to him from Poland
In Yiddish and Hebrew; he
didn’t remember why
He was a luftmensch, but
dependable in his way
A littleness never admitted
to staff meetings
He did what he was told to
do, and then ignored
He delivered messages and
curious packages
To obscure points forbidden
to him and his kind
And the dog was shot dead for
someone’s sport
With an old British rifle he
cleared strongpoints
So that the officers could
add to their resumes’
And he was told by the cooks
that he was too late
As they laughed and closed
the door on him
Confusion and smoke, and
fighting in the streets
Burning corpses and armored
cars, wild screams
There was little of him after
the RPG hit
And children scurried out to mutilate
and steal
He was posted as missing, possibly
a deserter
