Part XXIX and XXX

XXIX

Returning afterwards

All I could see was a burnt out shoe

here and there

And a wheel from a pram,

Trees holding their branches

Over their heads

Like they were covering their faces

Frozen in terror

At all that they had seen

Buried under the foundations,

Wishing they could leap away

On tramplones.

Birds and geese who wouldn’t

stop for days afterwards

and gates on the locks

that remained permently open

signalling to hurry on pass,

rather than your dead body

which must have laid there dead

for minutes

before I got there

and your ghost which wouldn’t

look me in the face afterwards

like a time traveller gone wrong.

XXX

taking back that moment

perhaps I would have stood still

and listened to your final warning

as I saw that tram spin then crash,

perhaps I would have simply called

the Police and the ambulances

and let them deal with the screams

of the dying and the dead,

and listened to your simple no

which got repeated over and over

as I raced towards the tram,

taking each stride

like I didn’t know what I was doing

rather than your warning

running across the tightrope

of baynets stuck in the flames.