The Wolf Soldier

He was twenty-four when he died.
I was seventeen.

I remember the prickling of his beard
when we kissed.
But not the tip of his nose,
Black with blood,
Or the stillness -
Dead man lying dead I never saw.

The bones under his skin
I saw like a skeleton
When he lay beside me.

I remember his sister,
Her holiday cut short.
His life cut short.
They never told me why.

I felt nothing when my first lover died.
Faintly ludicrous to call him that -
Though we kissed and we touched,
And he gasped disbelief at his body.
I think of him and there's nothing.


August 6, 1995
© Lela Kaunitz