The Great War

Surrounded by the shrapnel of affection,
   I walk the mine field of our recent past--
If I take one step in the wrong direction,
   I’ll be kaput before I hear the blast.
I swing my head away from where the stench is,
   And turn my back on what we’ve both defiled;
The future’s somewhere out beyond the trenches,
   Where fields are green and poppies still grow wild.
Oh, I will wake up screaming in the night,
   My shell-shocked heart exploding in my chest,
To see your face flicker like candlelight
   Before it’s blown away, like all our best.
      And yes, I’ll live, but I will be the slave
      Of slaughtered love, dumped in a double grave.

Copyright 2011 Matthew J Wells