September
1942                                                                       
 

I can pinpoint the time                        
The precise place                        
I fell in love
As surely as bombs
fell around us
And air-raid sirens
clashed with Vera Lynn's
“White Cliffs of Dover”
In an English dance hall
Where American arms
wrapped around foreign waists
Patriotic passions powered
by mortality
That swallowed sweethearts
and wives left behind
Spit them into dysentery ditches
dug between land mines
Emptiness filling furloughs
When the only thing
not rationed was romance
His appetite ravenous for life
Mine for love
that never consummated
in a cardboard wedding cake
or a cigar-band ring
Instead captured me
A prisoner of war until
December 1945
I can pinpoint the time
The precise place
I became a war casualty
As surely as purple medals
were pinned over hearts
Mine was amputated
In the dance hall
Where wireless air waves
announced his withdrawal
And Peggy Lee sang
“Someone Else Is Taking My Place”