I have watched him for hours

Wandering among the memorials for the dead

Touching the names of shadow people

Gazing the length of marble heroes.

He wishes he could have died

In glorious bloody explosions

Or had the red warmth of his body

Gouged from him in mud splattered innocence.

Instead he staggers ignoble

A hollow man shredded

Only by her wide-eyed indifference.