How do you like your blue-eyed boy?

I saw the battered annual in a Sue Ryder -

Its thrilling pages were half hidden behind sad shirts - 

I remembered a pale sky - 

The laconic student teacher - 

The quiet children from the farms -

Annick's smile, her bronze bracelet -

e e cummings' poem -

buffalo bill's defunct - 

I'd gone on to see Annick's blue-eyed boy -

I'd heard his story -

I'd seen the arms around his neck -

The words from the poem still haunted me -

How do you like your blue-eyed boy Mr Death?

Dorset 

December 2022