Love That Talk of War
by John Grey
I believe that secretly we love
this talk of war, as if we’re suddenly
old movie stars, loving hard and
beautiful and brave between bullets in
a glossy black and white that’s
so kind to both our faces.
It’s not the wine though it’s an
excellent vintage. Nor the lighting
shimmering in our faces like good teeth
and skin. And the music’s always soft jazz
or blues played low, too unobtrusive
to bother the more emotional of viscera.
It has to be our grieving for the waste.
We may feign horror at the bodies
slumped in trenches or strewn across
the plain or buried by the rubble
of their houses, but we’re really
jealous of the life ended in a very
human moment, still petted and well fed,
still desperately loving. We may
yet fade long and blandly but
there’s other don’t, these ones
who make us shudder, make us warm.
Whenever there’s a battle, we feel
ourselves going off to it. These
kisses are our long goodbyes. These
hugs are sympathetic yokes, attempted
imprints, that must do for the
letters that cannot reach us, the voices
in our head that soar above explosions
to say how extraordinary we are.
We will have sex later, each on
our own dangerous but thrilling front line
mission. We will wake in the morning like we
survived another conflict. We will
watch each other come to life, so grateful
there is yet, a way to earn our medals,
to be slaughtered and survive.