Collateral Damage
Aug 28 2008


Men who return from war
don’t say much.

They sit with their backs to the wall.
They jump
at sudden noises.
Wives finds them closed, impatient,
and bad in bed
— restless sleepers,
detached
when they make love.

This band of brothers
will take their secrets to the grave.
This most exclusive club
no wife can ever enter,
the dead and living together
— confirmed in blood;
welded
by absolute trust.

War stories
ignore the boredom.
There’s killing time
in some godforsaken base,
and the army’s classic refrain —
“hurry-up, and wait.”
There’s in the field, hair-trigger for days;
the faceless foe,
the constant danger.
And there’s counting-down to the end
— his faithful wife,
the home he hopes awaits him.

She looks into his eyes
and sees her own reflection
on the hard wet surface
— peering-in,
desperate to connect again.
Even half a century later,
his war is never shared
his story never spoken.
So all she can do
is gently hold him,
listening to the anguished shouts
that still contort his dreams.

Her stoic warrior;
who came back looking whole,
but feels broken.