Artillery

We were strangers
Boarding a cruise

Faceless souls
With dry tears

It was the first night
We shared our lives

Cheers to solitude
Hail to Paradise

we journeyed under the umbrella
Of sadness

Our eyes the same
Dry, lonely

Then sunrise came
It was piercing

We hoed hands
The way your mother once held yours

You knew me back then
I was the boy

Whom you left alone in the lawn
To celebrate your 7th birthday

I waited
It took me hours

You were gone in the absence
Still I stood like a great man

There were only birds
the dance of the trees

the cold
and the stench of a fleeting yesterday

I was left
A victorious soldier

Among all my beaten
Comrades.