Mutilated chains of flowers
delineate where schoolboys cowered;
sixteen brick houses on St. James Street
reduced to red dust under homeless feet;
photographers pause, catching their breath,
spellbound by the neutrality of death;
clearing haze where the white chapel stood
reveals ever-dismantling wood;
the market's one register on a charred-black stand,
nearby derges lilt from a funeral band:
*...oh and as, and as
they're lain in silk and white ashes...
the town broken apart, flattened...
...in marble graves and mahogany
under skeletal laurel branches...
...on down to sleep, to sleep...
...we may walk with weathered ease...
...oh we may consider, may remember,
a granted time, an affirming love...*