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Image for the poem here, she is like Annissa

here, she is like Annissa


so John Wayne lights up a cigarette in an old war movie
& I am right back in the bunkers, hearing the mortars
bursting around us. we youthful cavaliers, feeling the
cold fires of bravery & fear.

I remember the centerfold I kept on my locker, a pin-up
girl lying seductively on a furry rug, her body partially
covered by a black lacy thing; her hand touching a tempting
part of her that I pretended to touch. her beautiful, plaintive
eyes saying ‘wish you were here.’

when our post came under fire, I’d kiss my fingertips, then
plant the kiss on her lips for luck. I ran out to the bunker
knowing she longed for me to return.

one day a foreign kid came thru, I think he was Italian. he
saw my pin-up girl, grinned big, & said ‘Annissa!’ maybe it
was the name of his girl back home. so I called her that. it
was a good word, a good name: Annissa.

when I shipped back to the States, I left her there for the
next guy who would need the luck she carried. wrote
‘annissa’ in plain letters, so they would know…

there is a woman who comes to me now, many years away
from the old reveries. she tells me things, of how we journey
together in each other’s heart, thru the battlefields & the
bedrooms. we share an intimacy that gives us forbearance,
from one lonely dawn to the next.

we embrace the minutes we are allowed. our hands holding, eyes
closed & cheeks touching. not wanting to be anywhere else, ever.
she can count those minutes like the beads on a rosary.

she has a name, but sometimes, in an unheard whisper,
I call her Annissa.


sit close to me. closer. & I will tell you of sundered nights, a
young soldier watching for deadly shadows thru the porthole
of a sandbag fortress, & flares lighting up the sky…


(Art: James Lee Wall)


Written by JohnFeddeler
Published
All writing remains the property of the author. Don't use it for any purpose without their permission.
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