In Loving Memory

This didn’t befit him; he
who, if he had to die at all,
would rather have done so
for King and for country.

Although, in later years,
he would have plumped
for going peacefully
in his sleep...Not this way;

swaddled, like a child,
in hospital sheets, amidst
a folly of crimson roses;
between two worlds...

In limbo, like an oak
uprooted by the wind,
and falling, falling...

On his lips, an almost-smile;
in his mind’s eye, maybe,
it is summer outside. Girls
drift on by in scanty tops
or polka-dot frocks

as he brushes the hand of the pretty
young thing who brings his pills.
For form’s sake, naturally,
and in loving memory.