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American Bridge
by Bill Vernon

In a room overlooking
the River Maine, sipping
red wine and reading
how a local hero led
Patton's troops across
what is now called
the American Bridge
(which I visited today),
saving this city
but losing 108 men,
the Germans executing
French Freedom Fighters
at the old prison (near,
down the street this
building is on), I think
of my brother John,
that large oval scar
where the washer's wringer
caught him, just about then,
August 1944, in New Lexington,
Ohio, on Mill Street, how
I wept, his wounded arm
bandaged and in a sling.

 

Copyright 2008 by Bill Vernon