The campus in June of 1989
Was like a city emptied out
After an air raid alarm.
The children were tired of playing: they had pulled out.
The emptied-out classrooms, the emptied-out halls
Made the place free for campus lovers;
My girl and I did not withdraw.
Behind the curtains in the girl's dorm
With the weight of the world on us, we made love.
That warm, mild girl found courage,
I let myself go gracefully.
Virgin blood stained the white bed-sheet,
It was a flag, a shroud for something gone.
She washed it and hung it at the window;
It waved in the wind.
The sharp pain of history passed through me
And was sealed in my girl's heart.
For days on end we died and came alive
But the sun came up as always.
The way the days passed
After June of 1989,
You'd have thought we'd had enough of life.