(On 3 January 2023, Russia announced that 89 of its soldiers had been killed in an attack on Makiivka, Donetsk. Ukraine claimed that the number of dead was 400.)

 

I once travelled home on a London train.

It was packed; people pressed against the doors.

As I squeezed aboard, I noticed a sign:

‘Capacity four hundred; eighty-nine

Seated, the rest standing.’ I looked along

The heaving load of weary passengers,

And thought ‘what if everyone here perished?’

I considered the rows of unclaimed cars,

The hot dinners never to be eaten,

The families still patiently waiting.

But yesterday the real thing happened here:

Yes, they were soldiers; yes, they were Russian,

But cars, dinners and families persist,

While no one, seated or standing, is left.