It’s early evening and the TV is on.

You lay the table and children scream,

the frayed ends of day unravelling.

 

Through a jumble of bricks and cars

you enter the room with plates,

where sounds of appetite assail you;

 

while relayed at a distance

there’s news of war, its violence

annulling simple-minded schemes.

 

In a sealed-off quarter of a dusty city

bodies lie where heat is hazing –

a postcard prospect with trees

 

and benches, a straggle of shops

that frames the square, its dry air

cracks to a dull staccato

 

as hours away in that glimmering

focus events wash like waves

along a brittle shore.

 

The faces there are representative,

their features blurred to a cipher, and the dead

rot, unclaimed, slumped in a final statement.