She stared at the newsbreak,
His boots, baggy pants,
Name and battalion
Stenciled on the helmet,
Turnout coat open,
Two small heads peeking out,
And warmth started inside
Until she saw his face,
The face of tough,
Of strong, of a protector,
But it was all wrong
Because one tear,
Clear,
Only she saw it,
Formed in the corner of those
Loving brown eyes
And ran down his cheek.
She ran,
Digging keys out,
Her tiny blue car raced
Most of the way
Across town,
Engine shrieking,
Radio dumping news
Faster than she could listen.
It didn’t matter,
Her mission was clear.
The huge red truck
Carried him back,
Mumbling its guttural rumble.
She knew he sat hunched,
His crew unable
To ease his pain
Because
It was their pain,
Heads down,
No siren,
No talking,
No waving.
She was in time.
She stood on the sidewalk
As they parked,
Inside
Where everything would
Somehow
Return to normal.
He slowly dropped off the side,
His shoulders showing
Defeat
She ran to him,
Her perfume fighting with
The stench of sweat,
Her makeup pressed against
The soot still on his cheeks,
Her silk blouse pressed against
His sodden cotton shirt
As he wrapped her in his arms
And trembled.
She held him like she might a child.
His voice was high and clear
As he sobbed
“I could only carry two
And there were three.”
And it was clear
She would hold him
For a long time
Because for him
Once was enough
—
Haven’t written poetry for a while – needed a fix
OK – fair’s fair. I need to preface this by saying I am sick – fighting the flu and barely sane. Somwhere (Sunday night here?) I saw a tweet go by from our leader ensuring me (apparently only me) that the topic for the week was #clear. Not only am I sick, but I am trying to indie-pub my first story. So the ww hung in the back of my head until tonight when I absolutely had to file it (or getoff the pot) Imagine my suirprise when I went to link in and found that we were, instead, writing about #once.
This is part of the #wankwednesday group run by Ruby Kiddell. To look at all the entries look here
