The weather is war,
and the distant drums of parting echo loud.
This no man’s land
between our letters
crawls with lice of worry. I scratch at time.
All hours are strained like eyes on your return.
Your birthday
is reveille and retreat like all the rest.
My wish
to be with you
is false as a Jew dreaming of Germany,
or the sky untracked by any airplane.
All I can do
is hope for a ten-minute break in your day,
a cigarette,
no blisters
when you march under sun at the sergeant’s command,
for your Bible your gun faithful and true to you.
And one day,
clean as a rifle shot your return,
Book of the Gun
read no more,
our daily unsaid joy Together:
the dullest hour a holiday and shared.
Leave a Reply