On Front Street

standing in the middle of Marietta's Front Street
in either 1945 or late '44,
i saw an old man wearing suspenders
hanging loosely from the trials of a personal war.
and he still retained a wry smile
even though he was nearing his own last mile.
he was a coal man and knew where the chutes were;
he filled the winter bins to keep out the cold.
in summer he delivered blocks of ice to the well-to-do
and searched but never found his pot of gold.
he kept his hair neatly cut and trimmed around his ears
and as far as the war went he didn't show any fears.
he'd walk across the railroad tracks to the nearby river,
wondering when he looked both left and right
about life upstream in the distant big city
or downstream beyond the foothills trailing out of sight.
he heard about Malmedy and fighting across the seas
but never actually saw a man beaten to his knees.
he had a son in the Pacific and one in Italy
who was wounded by shrapnel at Anzio near the beach;
there was no correspondence during the duration
as both boys were busy and far out of reach.
he died in September of '48 on a hospital operating table
when a young doctor misidentified a formaldehyde label.