7/7/2005
In a dark tunnel one hot July morning
our lives were perfected in a blast.
In the tangle of dead and dying,
the forms on the floor, the dark,
lost legs in the quiet smoke,
many things were blown into history.
All that we were was suddenly the past
of a single, shared, infamous moment.
Four offers of marriage had been had.
A new flat, two new jobs,
a head-girlship had been had.
The words, ‘Everything’s going to be fine’
had been had.
A calypso song called Signs of Christmas,
an escape from Vietnam, Iran, Afghanistan,
many children – living and planned – had been had,
as had the ambition to circumnavigate the universe.
This was the past.
The present, a few brief hours of stumbling darkness
to the lighted station of the future,
before it was over, and all that we were was past, perfect.
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