Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with anybody who owns x-men or Robert Service. I'm just borrowing their stuff for a while.

Summery: I love Robert Service's Rhymes of a Red Cross Man, and of all the poems, The Wire is to me one of the most moving. I know this poem doesn't really have a plot, or an comic or movie background, it is just a few verses I wrote during a boring conference lecture about how I thought Wolverine would feel in the trenches. Sorry about any deviations from a Canadian accent, I live in California. The bit about Charlie's hat is actually a true story my grandda used to tell me about how one woman asked him to bring her her husband's hat if he died. He didn't die, so grandda never had to, but I thought it was an interesting request and stuck it in here. Jon's letter refers to the 'last letter' many soldiers kept on their person to be given to family members in case of death. Ken is a word that means understand and happens to rhyme with sin (I know, I'm bad). I write poetry quite a bit, but this is my first stab at x-men stuff, so please R I appreciate negative comments with the positive. Thanks.

Here on the wire

I pant and I groan

Idone watched others die

Wished their wounds was my own

The sky is on fire

Brothers scream as they burn

This body's untouched

Why won't they jus' learn?

Moon, she shows me a liar

Skin unbroke from my sin

Cracked blood dried on smoothness

Oh God why can't I ken?

My arms, they will tire

My gun starts to tilt

Jus' 'cause no one's killed me

Don't mean I don't want to be kilt

My gun ain't fer hire

But my body's fer sale

It's my job to be killed

What a pity I'll fail

I know I've got their ire

Here, 'tween this trench and that

But Jon's mum wants his letter

An' Charlie's wife his old hat

An' I crawl through the mire

Over dead, under sun

If'n no bodies be movin'

Then I'm near 'bout done

Seems it ought to be drier

Seein' as the sun burns so hot

But their blood's makin' rivers

What a pity mine's not

I'm burnin' friends on a pyre

Bury their killers where they lie

They ain't worth the buryin'

But then neither'm I

Sit'ation ought to be dire

But they're dead while I sigh

Gift more evil than good

I'm the man who won't die