MAN DOWN

“You silly stupid boy, I told you to be careful!”
She weeps as she mourns her fiancés loss.
“You couldn’t be trusted to cross the road!”
He was only a boy, gone down in the channel.
**** this ****** war, a girl mourns her love,
a Wellington pilot defending his love, his land.
As she cries mournful tears, her two friends console her,
she becomes strong and shouts:
“When you have it, something meaningful,
even for a minute, don’t let it go, fight for it!”
Then she crumbles, breaks apart in grief,
inconsolable, pain like she never knew –
for this is England, we stand alone –
his loss was for all of us.
Her friends suffer her tears and wish her well,
for she has changed, grown old at her moment of loss.

nick armbrister