Poem #10: Andy

April is National Poetry Month, and this poem is a companion piece to my story "Andy," published in Barren Magazine in 2019. Around that time, I experienced a depression that fundamentally changed me. I gave it a name and a life force, which helped me a lot in my recovery. I often reflect on what Andy was and is. While he isn't around much anymore, his memory is never far. On a lighthearted note, Jonathan contributed the line, "rolling hills on a terminal moraine," during a long road trip a few years back. I jotted it down as a joke and promised I'd work it into a poem someday. It's perfect for this:

There’s a place inside myself I cannot bear to go
That’s where he lives, or dwells, or is

Absent the rolling hills on a terminal moraine
Beyond us, my muse, a small wooden square

Within a house, a house:
A crooked, dilapidated place and a ghost I never see

An encounter I dread and long for
To chase and be chased forever

My greatest obsession: possession
Staring back, my muse, from the abyss into me

"Andy," copyright 2025 Amelia Cotter (first published in Highland Park Poetry Winter Muses’ Gallery, 2025)

Haibun #6: The Great Fire

February is National Haiku Writing Month! This haibun, a poetry form combining prose and haiku, features three haiku and is a tribute to my late grandmother and her life as a light-aircraft-pilot-turned-mother-of-five in the tumultuous time between World War II and the Vietnam War:

The Great Fire

My grandmother was a pilot when she was young and flew light aircraft. I have a photo of her from the 1940s standing proudly next to her plane. She was a dreamer. The story my mother tells is that my grandmother was poor and deemed unworthy of marrying my grandfather. My grandfather is remembered as a war hero who was shot in the head on D-Day, survived, and earned a Purple Heart.

big sky

            prairielands reach

                        a time before I was born

They lived in a modest neighborhood outside of Washington, D.C., and had five children together, as good Catholics did in those days. My grandfather worked long hours at a grocery store, and he drank. A lot. For years, his doctor told him if he didn’t change, he’d have a heart attack. And he did. Twice. The second one sent him falling off the bed in the middle of the night. He hit his head on a dresser, waking everyone in the house. My mother, who was 16, came running and cradled him as he lay dying.

sliver of crescent moon
over tallgrass prairie…
a kingbird’s solitary perch

He left my grandmother with four children at home, one fighting a new war in Vietnam, and no money. Later in her life, my grandmother wrote a poem about how all she ever wanted was to be with him. She lived with my parents when I was a baby, took care of me while they worked, and died when I was five in a nursing home.

across a shimmering plain
wildflowers bend
into the prairie wind

"The Great Fire," copyright 2025 Amelia Cotter (first published in Bronze Bird Review, 2024)

Ghost Story #7: The Virgin Mary Medal

Happy Halloween! While I was writing Maryland Ghosts: Paranormal Encounters in the Free State, my Uncle Bernie sent me more than 30 stories from throughout his life in the form of hand-written letters. After Maryland Ghosts was first published in 2012, and featured most of his Maryland stories, we turned his remaining letters into an unpublished collection to share with family and friends called The Haunted Letters: True Tales from a Ghost-Storied Life. Here is another one of my favorite stories from that collection:

I Corps, Quang Ni Province, Vietnam, 1967

The month is late March 1967, and I am about to complete my third month of a 13-month combat tour. My platoon, reinforced, approximately 45 Marines and one corpsman, have been assigned to guard two artillery units—one is a U.S. Army 175 M.M. mobile howitzer unit, and the other is a South Korean 155 M.M. mobile howitzer unit.

In an attempt to keep myself clean, I would draw fresh water from a well inside our lines. The water was not for drinking, as I would take a bucket of water up and behind our squad tent, bird bath, and clean my jungle utilities. On one such occasion, I approached the well with rifle and bucket in hand. I was only a PFC then, had filled sandbags all day, and it was about 4:30 a.m. Suddenly, I saw a flash as light reflected off of something shiny and small! I thought perhaps an enemy soldier had gotten through the barb-and-razor wire and had booby-trapped the well! Upon further investigation, I could see a small metal object. I blew the sand away and found a Sacred Heart medal with the Blessed Virgin Mary on the other side. After my bath, I put the medal on my dog tag chain!

I ate my C-ration dinner and went to my assigned bunker for security watch for the night. Amelia, I have shared this story with only a few since 1967. Two Marines shared a bunker so one could rest on occasion! The days and nights all ran together back then, 53 years ago, at age 19.

That night, I noticed I could see and hear better than ever. I could smell better and had a sixth sense!

An inner voice told me that I would not be killed in Vietnam, although I was wounded on three separate occasions—April 12, May 18, and June 20, 1967. The enemy tried to overrun us that evening but were unsuccessful!

The next day, I noticed my Lieutenant, squad leader, and fire team leader all looked at me in an unusual way. They said I looked different; I had changed. I felt I had begun a relationship with the Blessed Virgin Mary! And then, it all began, after we left the artillery outfit (30 days) and returned to our regular Alpha Company.

On day patrols, I could sense we were going to be ambushed, and we were! I told my squad leader every time I had the feeling, and then it would occur, until Corporal Mac finally asked me not to tell him anymore!

I felt wolflike with my senses, and noticed two other Marines had the same abilities, as they could see at night, hear like me, had senses like me, and had no apparent fear of death. The three of us became inseparable, and our officers took note! Soon the three of us were “walking point,” day and night, for the Alpha Company (150 Marines), 1st Battalion (600 Marines), and 7th Marine Regiment (2,000 Marines)!

The enemy felt we were dangerous and put a bounty on our heads, $500, ha! Pencil-drawn pictures of us began to appear on trees and fences! But as long as we remained together, it seemed you could not kill us. We got wounded together but stayed healthy.

The three of us once walked point for the 7th Marine Regiment, a round trip of 80 miles on a World War II Chinese paved road into the area of the North Vietnamese 2nd Division area, only to see tigers and elephants! We were lucky and blessed!

We should never have survived what we did. I got two battlefield promotions, one to Corporal, and one to Sergeant. And, in all their wisdom, the new officers separated us! On October 8, 1967, Sergeant Carl Boudreaux (The Fox) was wounded so badly he was rotated to the States, and I was not with him. On February 6, 1968, Sergeant Robert Ewoldt (Shorty) was killed in action, and I was not with him!

Sergeant Boudreaux did recover and passed away in July 2015. He lived a good life until the old wounds, and Agent Orange, finally took their toll. He was 67 years old.

I lost the medal in March 1967 while water skiing on the Severn River in Maryland. I tried to retrieve the medal as it sunk like a one cent piece! I could see the Blessed Virgin Mary’s face as she sank into the abyss of that river over 50 years ago! The meaning I placed on losing the medal was that Mary had guarded and protected me for several years and she felt I could make it on my own from there.
–B.W.M.

"The Virgin Mary Medal," copyright 2024 Bernard W. Masino and Amelia Cotter (first appeared in The Haunted Letters: True Tales from a Ghost-Storied Life, 2013 and 2020)