Valour In The Early Years Of The Twenty-First Century #2 Poem by GORDON GILHULY

he stands in the middle
of an asphalt field he sees flowers mostly
daisies and buttercups and where
the scotch grass and thistles thin out
a little there is the round sweetness
of clover and the tiny brilliance
of bluebells he knows he loves
her as surely as the white hot sun
the summer blue sky the gentle clouds
he smiles knowing that she loves him too
that they are happy

he smiles again at her remembered
beauty her milk-white skin damn
she was beautiful and still is
- he knows a looker when he sees one -
and still as vibrant still as chatty
filling his rapidly emptying ears with
her charming prattle he smiles again more
broadly as a capricious parade of tableaux surrounds
him their life together her hair on a pillow
a wedding picture full of buoyant friends
applauding them the delicious days
of coming home to her
of coming home
of

a car horn viciously tears her
from his arms he blinks and knows
at some deep level
that he is lost
that he cannot remember the name
of this strange woman
beside him