Fatality at St John's

Half an hour late at Tunbridge Wells

          Doors won't open, breaks are stuck

          And I feel I've run out of luck

Before I've reached the morning bell.

Coming home, via London Bridge

          'Severe delays' on platform five

          But I at least am still alive

And have no cause to fume or judge

While along the platform discontent

          Rumbles from commuters who

          Do not know what they can do

To get back home to deepest Kent.

Down at St Johns, by platform one

          A family's guilt, for they out live

          The tattered corpse which cannot give

Them answer, now that he is gone,

To all the questions, raging round

          From memories of ugly words,

          Slamming doors and jangling chords

Of arguments, like unhealed wounds.

The pain which he tried to avoid

          Has been passed back to those who cared

          Or could have done, had he been spared

But now can only sense the void.

I read of death on every page,

          And every day another war

          But single loss affects me more

Than genocide or tyrant's rage.

For we know loss is not the end

          And though I never knew his name

          His death goes through me just the same

As if he were my closest friend.

Brian Hick

©copyright Sally Hick 17.10.22