She would have been okay

Had he died that day
She could have grieved
She would have done the right thing
Posted it in The Sun
Accepted another beer from Jock and Phil
Sat at the front bar of the RSL
But by the time
She lived a hundred
Nightmare nights
His dreaming of the dark
The black
Water
The drowning flailing sinking bodies
Brothers treading and hoping
HMAS Melbourne and the Voyager
Slicing through the water each other
The nightmare of some truths emerging
It was the dark
And some of them were going to die
But he didn’t
And she couldn’t
Couldn’t bear him
Living
Couldn’t bear the enslavement
Of wishing him dead sometimes
And fearing she meant it.