Garden

You first met him in a garden
as the moon was rising fast,
but you’re not the girl you were then—
no more living in the past.

You’re a soldier now, and soldiers
don’t consort with men in black.
They wait, rifles at the ready,
for the signal to attack.

Years ago you took his picture
for remembrance of his smile—
bright and sunny, like the golden
fields of wheat that stretch for miles—

but now those fields are choked with bodies
on the gallows that he built.
Burn the photograph to ashes.
Drive your knife in to the hilt.

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