Michael Daugherty
To Keep Faith
She had hair so vehemently red
that after you’d finally found the guts
to reach out and shakily touch it
you furtively checked your fingertips,
despite the evidence of smooth and cool,
for the slightest sign of cut or blister
which might have become the kind of scar
old soldiers like you are proud to wear
long years beyond their most beautiful war.
There springs to mind irresistibly,
to keep faith with such imagery
as ever suited a sly night’s purpose,
the thought that you were fortunate or wise
to have bypassed the Senior Service.
Remember the blue-grey, the cold, the deep?
You would surely have drowned in those eyes.
Page(s) 31
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