(no subject)

CENTENARY

A hundred years, only a hundred years
since I saw you, heroic and absurd
a boy behind a moustache twice your size
soft skinned, clear eyed, your face so full of light.


They could not tell me how it was you died
because they never found you; you were
lost. To them you were a letter among millions
in envelopes addressed but never sent.


I am still waiting by the garden gate
checking each stranger’s face as they pass by.
I will be ready for when you come home.
A hundred years. Only a hundred years.