The Hired Assassin

Only in November
countrymen remember.
Alone, I hear his screams
Replayed in my dreams.
Alone, I wake in fear
To see him twitching there.
As a hired assassin
I thrust with precision
my bayonet so deep
in his chest, that he'll sleep
immersed in brown slime
the remainder of time.
I twisted the blade
the armourers made
and stabbed out his eyes
to destroy the surprise
that returned my cold gaze
as I cried through the haze.

W.A.B. Brown: 2nd January to 12th March 1992
Poem prompted by reading Wilfred Owen's poem The Sentry .
Francesca Lowery , artist