Interrupted Stories

Sam is lying there
among the early graves
of other people’s children,
smiling bravely, I suppose,
because to picture him
in anger at his unexpected
ending would be senseless.

Death is pointless: that’s the point.
It’s up to us to make some sense of Sam
and every other interrupted story.

Eye to Eye

There was so much
fuck and shit that night.

Two uni boys beside me,
telling ghetto voce stories,
laying out their manhood
on their widespread legs.

Two boys aboard a train:
one black, one white and I,
across a double decade
gulf, could only listen.

and then one says your people
man and then the other says
my people what you mean
you know one says your Indian

brothers. Then the other,
second generation
London stock with roots in
Pakistan, stared straight at me.

And I, looking past his
clothes and swagger, reached
across the gulf and met him,
understanding, eye to eye.