A Half-Century Apart Poem by Alexandre Nodopaka

All I know is what he writes her.
What she says or doesn't
must be guessed between his lines.

It is September 1918 in Battle Creek and raining,
she's somewhere in Illinois where it is not.
He waits to be shipped across the Atlantic

and kills the hours with burning words
promising his Yankee lass that no French girl
will get his best.

He remembers a little of what he learned
of the Gaul tongue and by the end of his letter
he writes her adieu not knowing his fate is cast

in a pine box draped in bleu, blanc and rouge
while hers in red, white and blue
half a century and a score in the future.

~~~