I do not sleep well, for your silent voice still sits in my head.

The darkness of the night,

lit up by the neon, plastic-looking sirens

of an ambulance

and the police cars who came screeching to a halt,

running over the dead

hotdogs, battered burgers and remains of candy floss, dropped

on the floor, trod on with contempt by the man who lost

his girlfriend’s respect because the sight of the gun

was off kilter and the way she told him off

for being pathetic, meant that the candy floss had to pay the price,

this darkness that grew of the Market Square

in Salisbury, grew steadily around your fading out life.

 

You breathe so quietly that I put my head to yours

and in an act of rememberance, my ear almost

touching with the gentleness of a lover, your lips,

I listen to your dying unsaid thoughts.

Your fingers, which had tried

to grip my hand in a vain attempt not to drown, were cold,

Titanic, shiftless and matted as I became the last voice you heard;

a task that I have had three times, and want no more.

 

Slowly, slowly, Time edges past and the ambulance

with fading smile of reassurance becomes the policeman

holding my arm as he tries to take the last vestige of life,

the warmth of congealing blood, appearing mask like

on my shirt and the female officer smiles at me from

the other side of the tattered shirt, broken bones and

destroyed life. It is a smile of pity and anguish, of knowing no more

can be done for the lad whose life has ticked away in my arms.

 

The lights go out over Salisbury Market Square and I remain intact

but the evening has hastened and I

will be part of this moment forever.

The lights remained out in my head until I can find the switch

to turn them on again, it is a job I do not want, for the silent

slumber of the ghost who lays quietly in my arms

never said goodbye in that Salisbury Market Square.

 

Ian D. Hall 2015.