NO MAN’S LAND
You tell yourself
you were never meant
for marriage,
serial romances or affairs.
You tell yourself
you did not choose that place
where a truce is held like a holiday,
between those armies of the night,
where despite the language barrier
a carol or two is sung
across the divide
above the wire.
Voices twining in harmony
drift up into the cold dark —
Silent Night.
Stille Nacht.
After a few songs —
never more than a few,
you no longer ask
what you’re fighting for,
and,
if this had been that war
to end all wars—
fooled again.
Gone, too, the hope
for a lasting peace
in your lifetime,
you find yourself at dawn,
all maps redrawn,
bound for Blighty
with your wounds,
and now,
all that remains
of an old conflict: your body,
bearing enough shrapnel, surely,
to set off some alarm.
