gardens of stone

 
I want to forget you, she told me. you’re going to a bad place,
& maybe you won’t come back.

not a very amorous send-off for a soldier shipping out. but she
was right, it’s not good to be a soldier’s girl. man was built for
war; I always figured a woman was built for sex & love. & waiting.

it wasn’t much of an affair, a few dates, but she lingered, like a
woman does when you get past the cinnabar on her lips & the
groping of her much-too female body. I used to fall easy for dames
like her till I learned it’s a short drop to broken.

I saw her in a bar with a joker whose hands roamed her back & legs
like it was familiar territory. her perfume twining with the smoke rings
like a hooker’s halo. she’ll forget him too. after tonight.

I’ve been accused of finding the beauty in every bad girl, something
a pistolero could strap on a full metal jacket for & dance into the
carnage. but there’s no romance in war, even after you’ve slept
with the enemy.

so I kinda half-salute her from the other side of my drunk,
and wonder at the strange poetry of it:
to apprehend love  –  and thus, to forget…


(Art: Frantisek Drtikol)