Hurry

Before the bomb hit the shelter,

Before everything was white,

Before everything was screaming,

Twelve years old he wrote,

In frantic unschooled hand,

And thought of the blonde girl he met,

In the brickyard behind the schoolhouse,

They played hide and seek,

He hid in the butcher's shop,

And watched with heart pounding as she passed by,

Cupping her hands to her eyes to see in,

He remembered her eyes then,

How he had forsook hiding to stare directly into them,

And how grey and full and knowing they had been,

Before the bomb hit he unknowingly wrote:

I miss you.

I miss you.

I miss you.

Then the white asked him how he felt,

And he told her of the grey eyes and the blonde girl he'd met,

And she listened.