The Songs of old birds in cold worlds warm hearts of women where men have left.

Past wars still brewing in the brain making stews of despair he shares only with himself suffocating without breath his heart
infested with death as
The blood of foes
Is still staining
his hands

She holds him
as though an infant
trembling in fear of his
own ghost she assures him
with a kiss of hope that life is
still worth living and all else is
forgiven and all else is forgiven