Night in Blue, poem

The poem "Night in Blue" by Brian Turner, published in Here Bullet in 2005, reflects on the speaker's experiences and emotions during a year of war. The speaker questions if this year has made them a better lover and if they will truly understand hardship and loss. They express their lack of firsthand knowledge of war's atrocities and their only connection being the memories of the desert and the cries of a woman late at night. The poem ends with a sense of emptiness and a reflection on the fleeting nature of life. Night in Blue poem by Brian Turner published in Here Bullet 2005. At 7,000 feet and looking back running lights blacked out under the wings of America and I'm waiting. A year of my life disappears at midnight. The sky a deep Viridian. The house lights below small as match heads burned down to embers. Has this year made me a better lover? Will I understand something of hardship, of loss? Will a lover sense this in my kiss or touch? What do I know of redemption or sacrifice? What will I have to say of the dead? That it was worth it? That any of it made sense? I have no words to speak of war. I never dug the graves in Tal Afar. I never held the mother crying in Ramadi. I never left my friend's body when they carried him home. I have only the shadows under the leaves to take with me. The quiet of the desert, the low fog of the lot. Orange groves with ice forming on the rims of fruit. I have a woman crying in my ear late at night when the stars go dim. Moonlight and sand as a resonance of the dust of bones and nothing more.