Spared

Envelopes and ink,
anticipation mounting
over weeks
as fraying slips of parchment
flit over stormy seas.

Braying nights
of blasts and sirens,
fretting over enemy lines-
word has it, they
inch closer by the day.

Mourning you
miles and miles away,
knee-deep in bloody mud
and shellshocked under
ceaseless fire.

None of this.

Instead, it’s just you and me
lazing beneath
mismatched sheets,
frost-fogged windows
trapping our home’s heat.

War decades away-
worries so inane-
we forget
what could have been-
how time spared us
this pain.