Half a generation older, on similar trajectories:
Her brother and my cousins –
but closer hearts than that makes out,
our guides and friends as well as kin;
Our families.
Conceived on leave from service and born
beneath the bullet, in shelter from the bombs…
Gone.
Treading softly on the outfall, from a world
where gey few know your name
The time felt late. Eleven? 1:30? Or toward sunrise?
We’d travelled hours, together, gravitating.
She had an open face, mobile in expression
and quite strong around the jaw;
light brown hair, with no artifice of blonde.
~ Clear eyes who’d seen some compromise and hurt
in a life which didn’t ask for much,
that suffered what it must and learned
and still found gratitude for simple acts of kindness.
~ Someone I was protecting, seeing safely home,
as neither escort nor yet lover
but attentive to her needs as understood,
to the best of my abilities. Albeit sadly flawed.
Maintain the Advance! 