Waiting Poem by Imogene Wagner

With quiet faces immunized to pain
They sit inside their empty rooms and wait
While agony diffuses like a stain
Within their hearts and they anticipate
Day unto day 'til time has built a wall
Between their absent lovers and their faith,
Oh, is it female cowardice that all
Sweet memories to buoy turn into wraith?

Or that a wounding Never stabs the breast,
So that in fear and rending need they pray
“God keep my man forever safe and blest
And bring him home within my arms to lay”...
Is caring but a pain they would deny
Were it not that a void is but to die?