Heinz Gropsmeyer

Almost forty years and your name still moves,
shrapnel under the skin, on reflective days.
You were not much older then than in the Wehrmacht
photograph above your name, twenty to my twenty-two.
Your canvas pack told more of you - Kölnisswasser,
talcum, Rotbart blades - though you had not lain
long enough to grow death's beard. More the lad
down someone's street than hated Hun or Boche
...