UNIFORM

“So handsome in a uniform” they tell my parents,
when I dress up as a pint-sized mailman
to deliver valentines to the neighborhood girls.
I decide on a life in uniform, not realizing that
you don’t look good in anything if you are dead.

Nobody ever tells me about the lies
when my government gets me to don a uniform,
as old men dispatch me to the front lines,
lamb to the slaughter, with scant regard for my life,
in pursuit of power, glory, and immortality.

Those innocent hands that once handed out
missives of love, now dispense death casually.
Someday, I will lie in a casket, a casualty of war,
as letters I wrote home are delivered after my death,
and mourners say in hushed voices “So handsome in a uniform.”