6

if one day
     when she is walking thru the rubble and tears of a world inexplicably demolished

          she sees the body of the man
                    blown asunder from its previous background
          newly stark and still red against the nothing that will be there

               it is possible
          that she will gently tear a page from her book
          slide it into his tattered shirt pocket
               carefully
          tenderly cradle his already rotting head in her arms


                         slowly release him as she stands up
     her eyes still trained on that wreck
     as her feet go in the other direction

as if it were somehow
          something beautiful