A Soldier Off-Duty Overseas
So quiet
That loneliness taps on the shoulder,
Or is it the memory of her warm breath?
Turn, you find her presence in the light
Leaving,
Disappearing into the west,
Drawing each evening thing out of itself,
Coloring the receding vapors with longing.
Each second kneads another diminishing fullness of shape,
Elastic as the invisible hands that stretch
like the rose, purple, dark silver of cloud.
Vapors, the only solids, condense, melt,
Bang the tin of that thing poets call the heart.
The gleam on the glass of a farmer’s irrigation canal
fades.
What is she doing now?
Absence is so much shadow….
No one discerns the intensity of another’s subjective emotion
Except in a poem,
But words are at a loss to console.
Horror Sleaze Trash 