In the darkness
You slump against me
Shoulders of a hero tense…
I try to undo the knots of war

In the darkness
The rifle crack fades to a mind’s echo
Battlecries blown distant on this sultry summer’s night
Your past, a shared future, war.

In the darkness
The sweat and dust of attack long since sluiced away
But sights, smells, memories still haunt and cling
‘I’ll be dead in a year’ you say

In the darkness
We lie, drifting to the bloody future
Where our fighting, caring, twisted paths will take us
Terrible. Inevitable. War.