Ballad of a Hitman

If anyone would have stories to tell, might not it be the hired assassin?

And now, from the recess

Of a wavering mind,

He thinks of the stories

He’s leaving behind.

“How many people

Am I thought to have killed?

There’s nobody saying;

Their voices are stilled.

And how many women

Do they say I have known?

There’s no one that saw us,

‘Cause we were alone.”

So goes the saga

Of a man on the run,

And only the shadows

Implying a sun.

He watches for movement

The vacuous plane,

The breeze of the moment,

The fall of the rain.

So many a time,

He has stifled a hurt;

In grimacing silence,

He lay there inert.

This time, it is real;

The bullet was true.

He looks at a picture

Of someone he knew.

And now, from the recess

Of a wavering mind,

He thinks of the stories

He’s leaving behind.