Poetry Magazines - The best collection of poetry magazines online - Simon Armitage

Man in the crowd was taken out from within a group
huddled in the almost light at the centre of what
had been their town. This man knew that it was inevitable.
The other men, all of them, let this happen. They had not been
chosen. They could still stand in the almost town as they
stared, saw the soldiers march him to the back of a house,
heard shouting and then a single shot. The same men
had seen a mother and child taken out. She had gone with
the other women and their children to board the bus. She had believed
that they would be taken out of the town and to safety.
She had heard so many words that said this would happen.
Because her child screamed with hunger, because she told the
soldier this was why the child cried, the soldier did it.
"He won't feel the hunger anymore", he said, and slit the
child's throat. They all saw it. In the stained light
of the place, each gun shot hacking at their souls.
Some lost it; went mad. Hour after hour this
went on until the rumours boiled and the women and children
still standing in the place became drapes of terror.
The light died. The information died. The town died.
The men who had not been chosen, not yet, remained
within their shroud, their mourning circle, their terror
ring, waiting for the pattern to break because even
the strongest soldiers could not keep this up. They
were mostly young, boys even. The stain of their fear
showed through their uniforms, their jackets, their jeering.
Some of the men occasionally looked out, beyond the soldiers,
attempting to recognise their town. There was a shop, there was a cafe,
there was a bus stop. Without people all these places had become
like ruined furniture; their signs now silenced, senseless.