Medicine Man Death
came calling me lover.

Rusty hair spiked,
cheeks paint-streaked,
he wore the face
of a soldier I'd loved
seven years before.

Removing the animal
skin cloak fringed
by the shrunken heads
of those he had killed,
(he hated war, even back then)
exposed razor-whipped skin
as rusty stripes
on a gauze shirt.

He had said I wouldn't
want to love him
when he returned.
I did want
a different lover
but I embraced him anyway.

I knew he'd been
struck down by the world
and all the times I played
"She Sells Sanctuary"
still left him
taking care of me
in my new found grief.