Allan Wells
Balaclava
From the road you see the hulks,
Three of them, a row of wobbly skulls
With smoky eyesockets. Once they were
Minibuses for the disabled.
They went up the night after
The footbridge over Hen Brook
Was torched. (The schoolchildren
Walk two miles round now).
The older people hate
The ‘mindless monsters’ who do this.
But it shocks me to find
I don’t hate them. I want to
Hate them but I can’t.
The new Asian, who was coshed
Soon after settling into
The late-closer, says the same.
He can’t hate them. He’s subdued but
He finds no feeling inside himself
That you could call hate.
Asked what he does feel, he says:
Nothing. I just see the two eyes
Moving in the balaclava
As the cash is scooped up.
Page(s) 51
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