The Account

Ninety unaccounted for In CNN’s 

latest pile of human waste

excreted by a liberating war.

  

Is it not spurious – the number

even in this digital age where everything

measured, conflated –

individual suffering, lost mothers,

children, separated heads and hearts

homogenised, weighed?

“Hmm, yes, looks like 90,”

the CNN man says to his crew.

“Get some footage; no details;

no legs or feet.  Definitely not.

Don’t want to upset Nike:

they sponsor this slot.”

Moving On

Shut the door: no point

in wasting heat – but if you wish

leave it ajar just in case.

He may return, of course.

We understand. 

The bed's made

window clean, blind drawn

lamp on desk,

asleep for months. Be a dear;

check that it works.

You can see he's been.

That’s his chair.

His clarinet in its small case

needs new reeds –

his books.

Unfashionable coats

in a dark cupboard

bow emptily like ghosts

to faded jeans.

On the wall, prints of bands

and heroes past,

spent calendars,

old shoes under the bed

where the cat

now sleeps.

The economy, failed relationships,

wanting to save, war’s end:

any of these may bring him back.

The battery in the clock is dead.