Body Bag on the Runway

No one cares much for the doctor
Or the nurse when there is a lady
Following with an alligator purse.

Even the child imagines the bag
To be a prize, with a wide-eyed
Gator head and leggy extensions,

Before knowing the price of real hide.

A doctor or nurse I would care for
On the street where there is a lady
Turning her magenta scarf into handles

To drag a dead dog from the street.
He hangs on her like a purse of cement
As if he were wanting still to stay

A blockade in the traffic of other bodies.

He reminds me of first carrying you
And the thought that if the doctor
Or the nurse had come in, into war,

There would not be a third, a lady
With a body bag--her purse full of you,
Who had gone, blown to once, and sent in letters.

You are well in death, a glossed hide
Having and hiding tight some lady inside.