The Day The Paratrooper Antitank Platoon Went Into Action Poem by Gert Strydom

The day the paratrooper antitank platoon
went into action
stays with me
with a piece of shrapnel
that almost missed my knee,
but grazed it leaving its scrawling mark

and sometimes lovers want to know
about that scar, about the one
just under my chin
and to them
they are almost like tattoos on my skin

but to me they address
a different story
of a war, that most
want to forget now
and of which
I do not know how too.