It seems now that I was so near to that war.
I was born eight years after it ended
When the General Strike had been defeated.
Yet I was born by Very light and shrapnel
On duck boards
Among limbs without bodies.
I was born of the look of the dead
Swaddled in mustard gas
And fed in a dugout.
I was the groundless hope of survival
With mud between finger and thumb
Born near Abbeville.
I lived the first year of my life
Between the leaves of a pocket bible
Stuffed in a khaki haversack.
I lived the second year of my life
With three photos of a woman
Kept in a standard issue army paybook.
In the third year of my life
At 11 am on November 11th 1918
I became all that was conceivable.
Before I could see
Before I could cry out
Before I could go hungry
I was the world fit for heroes to live in.
1985