I had a dream I met you after slumbering in some red field.

My eyes were ripe with hurt. For your smile fell heavy on my shoulder,

thick with piety and diseased with grief, stretching out

over white crosses - the bugles in the barbed wire.  And boys

who bit suicide, and dragged their corpses in their head,

skipping the scythe in white heat, trembled  on the cheek

I kissed. Somme  long  time ago.

Your eyes, bruised by hell, were a sullen canal and slurred

Patriot terms of friendship,  and when your hand begged to stop and shook

the air for help,  it rained blood and I choked under your shattered chest,

beating the sky for its death.

We can't sleep now, was all you said

and I saw that I was alone.