Armistice

Armistice

A grey cigarette haze lingered

above the bed like gun smoke

over a battlefield and we,

the casualties of war,

lay beneath. When we kissed

I tasted Bataan on her lips

and she said she could see

Manzanar in my eyes.

At times love is a negotiation

between desire and history.

The clock on the bedside table

flashed in dim red numbers

as the battery was nearly spent.

After the passion runs low

there are not many choices;

a long march in the Philippine sun,

a desert cage of spiral concertina wire

or a one last bloody conflict that ends
with the squeeze of a trigger. 

SMG