I Will Never Forget
I will never forget the man I fell in love with,
a man who once felt whole, who now bellows
through broken nights of blood-stained desert,
who sees ashen faces frozen in sand squalls
and calls out for brothers and sisters encaged
behind barb-wire fences. I listen for his silence
to speak, for bombs to detonate, for bullets
ablaze in his burnt memories. How can I keep
vigil every night while he wrestles sleep?
Love is a tender hand to wipe the sweat
from his brow, a voice to quiet ghosts,
but love falls again and again. I wake
entrenched in him, his Irish rye taste,
muscles clenched, surface entangled
in foreign lands and the earthy pines
of home. I fear my own needs, confused
by boulders piled higher, arms reached out,
his bare back turned away – I push
and pull, pinned to him, tormented
by his pain, his hardened shell in
tornadic dreams. When his beautiful
mind slips into terror and disappears
in black, even spring no longer holds
tomorrow’s birth. Even the gardener,
distressed, retreats in snowdrifts of moonless
night. Seasons come and go, the petals wilt,
the leaves dry, and the skies become
unsettled by violent storms.
Puddled in sweat again, his eyes weep without words.
He is noise, a restless drum pounding in my ears.
Blue veins bleed coagulated tears, and I, with heavy
red lids, watch hecklers taunt. Faceless
widows circle around demonic flames, sparks
dance in their cool clearing. I smell their root,
like licorice, moist and dark
when he slips again. Then, comes morning.
He lifts mountains to sky, and I forget the night.
He colors my silent soul in sapphire. With a trace
of one finger, I sigh, new like a hopeful dawn.
Darkness forgotten, I tumble soft through
lavender clouds in bloom and ladles deep
in his warm, starry-eyed wake. I lay
beside every nuance of his camouflaged rhythms –
his march, stomp, glide, his lowered stance
accepted in strength and weakness. Another
bloody night beats on stone, and I try again
to keep vigil as he succumbs to yesterday’s battlefield.
Copyright © Rhonda Johnson-Saunders | Year Posted 2020
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