It could happen

It could happen

to any one of us. It’s a grey morning,
calm. December. We are in town killing 
time, maybe meeting friends, something 
other than our own company, the same 
four walls. Just outside the travel agents
a ten-year-old girl, shot at a checkpoint
you check your phone, but there’s nothing
new. There never is. We pass Quality Spuds 
here, they gunned down the chef simply 
for feeding people who were hungry
and you pat your pockets for the cigarettes
you keep forgetting you don’t smoke now.
We walk on. Unexpectedly, the sun breaks 
through clouds, and we both look up 
you cannot see the quadcopters, but 
they play the sound of children, screaming
you drop a handful of shrapnel into the hat 
of the man playing something unrecognisable
on his accordion outside the shopping centre
we hear them call from under the rubble
but how can we help? what can we do?
and you tell me how yesterday the woman 
at the bus stop dropped like a felled ox
they lie by the road, drown in their own blood
say that you stood there, useless, while 
others did what little they could to save her
ambulances are targets, the doctors are gone
You feel guilty, you say. The wind picks up
and I have no words, can mouth no absolution 
that either of us would believe in. We walk,
shrink ever further down into our jackets, 
put one foot in front of the other, and wait.