"It's the Cars on the Highway..."

[psalm_onethirtyone]

Purple Love Song

after the war you came back to me
with dullness in your eyes.
Your smile was sunless.

one day you took me dancing although
you preferred to walk alone by the river.
Leaves fell. the DJ said
loud & American
'we have a hero here in the room with us.
This dance is for you and your purple heart'

we should have run away.
but you danced the dance with me until
the rock and roll guns fired around
your head and a guitar-plucked shrapnel chased
all the bad dreams out of the darkness.
I drove us home.
City-shrivelled fruits grew and I thought
maybe their tiny poor-formed bodies bore
sweetness. You
flinched at bright lights and big cars.
we hid in the bedroom from the explosions of your
memory and closed all the windows and muffled the sounds.
It should have done more good.

you walked by the river and autumn rain fell.
Please forgive me that
no shower washes desert dust away,
that the smoke alarm when I accidentally
burned dinner made you scream
instead of laugh. Before
it made you laugh.
Please forgive me that the day your unit died
it wasn't me you carried back, or me who
called you 'soldier', made you coffee full of scotch
helped you sleep for the last time without dreams.

I know you hide it in the back of your drawer.
I wish
either I had pinned it on or
I could throw it away down a sewer like a murder weapon.

Leaves fall and sometimes I do, too.
I can bear your sunless smiles. I
am only frightened that you will
go to war again and I will sit helpless in your
favourite chair
watching you dig a foxhole in the
linoleum
to hide from the TV.

Comments

[rainbowjehan.livejournal.com]

*flails* Thank you.