May and Barnet Souster.
Youngest children, large family, 1915.

Barnet lies, two years too young
Joins the army, crosses the seas
He reads his sister’s letters
Sitting in wet earth with the damned
Cigarettes and petrol beer
Frosted, huddled in his trench coat caked in blood and mud.

By English fireside, May waits
Silent for her brother’s return.
Thumping on the door
A telegram
We regret to inform…
William Barnet Souster missing
Presumed dead.
So where lies Barnet Souster?
What foreign soil embraces him?
How did he meet that end?
A gas attack?
A shell in the trench?
Did he fall, peppered with shrapnel
Into the arms of his companions
To die among his friends in the dirt?
Or is his tomb in No Man’s Land?
His uniform rent by machine guns
Stumbling into crater limbo
Barbs around his boots
Sinking into lakes of death
Dead fingers on his skin
Shrieking shells his lament
And lice his coat.

Where now? An unmarked grave?
Unknown soldier, known unto rats
Quiet in the craters
A ghost in Flemish fog.

May wonders where he is
She joins him – does she learn
That the world remembers?
His name liveth for evermore