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Description
GERMAN HIGH COMMAND COMMINIQUE
OCTOBER 18 1918:
ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT

Hearing becomes faint,
as though somehow it was possible to have tunnel vision for sound.
That sick little smirk
to hide the fear and the loss and the little bit of you that hasn't quite died.
No one told you how
you were to become the last of a golden age, the first to fall beneath the weight
of a grieving, twisting
pain that grips the heart and leaves the body completely numb.
That sick little smirk
becomes a little boy's grin and somehow there is life behind your eyes.

“But perhaps all this that I think is mere melancholy”

Because you too were young
and the little golden orange body had floated to the top of the pristine
almost blue but really more green
water. And although there should have been a shriek, or at least a tear
there was nothing but a slow walk,
so as not to spill the bowl, to the bathroom graveyard final resting place.
The porcelain place where
nothing good ever really goes swallowed up the last remaining smile.
Like the birdsong that drew out paper,
like a fleeting white flag, final attempt at inner peace.