Perhaps the worst is still to come
fear of the worst being the best one
can do I'm
afraid
to feel the gravest grief
inclining toward the bombed belief
it could be you.

- like any holocaust - afraid
of those who amputate reality
and force bodies out of gravity
far removed from the faintest echo of humanity
the smoke, dust, and silence rising
wedged in wreckage

a silence shot by mobile phones
their signals screaming
"please pick up" dial tones
amplifying this anonymous call to arms
echoing across the ripped up tracks
SMS's unread, unchecked, unanswered back

like discarded shoes and piety they lie,
not in tidy rows outside a mosque
or in the cupboard neatly stacked
there they lie
my sister's and brother's
lifeless eyes
an arial photograph
a line of headstones
another cenotaph
an instant of our lives lived on
a rush hour blown
to kingdom come.

13/3/04