I wore silk flowers

in my hair-pink camellias,

or gardinias, full and white

tucked just behind the ear

for that special furlough night,

when my sailor boy came home

all pressed sharp in his blues

to dance the bloody war away

with a girl in bobby socks and saddle shoes..

.

I wore silk flowers in my hair,

gardinias full and white,

as Walter Winchell read the news

of lacerated flesh and vacant eyes,

at nine P.M. every Sunday night.

Life went on, but wore a pall,

dreading that telelgram or a call

with words of another soldier boy's fall.

.

Decades later, parades and flags

mark our memory of those lads.

It still takes away my breath to think

of  those futures erased by death.

Oh, how I used to wait for my sailor boy

on furlough, sharp and pressed in his blues,

dancing the war away with a girl

in bobby sox and saddle shoes.

05/28/2005