The tap drips into the sink
If she could only
Think …think …think.
Maybe she could rewrite it
And this twenty-fourth April
Won’t be as cruel as the rest.
The story plays out again,
Blurred faces moving, packed tight,
Tall fences penning them in,
Stretcher parties with hoardings
Running across the pitch.
Too much pain to take in
Through pictures on TV.
When the cameras had moved on
A bitter breeze blew off the moors,
Parted unread pages of programmes
And rippled shirts left on railings
In football’s quiet mark of respect.
Men moved head-down, hunched over brooms,
Sweeping the terrace terror swept through.
Other, bigger brooms tidied the truth up too
But it burnt and bruised the blame that held it,
Too big and broken a burden to bury.
Ninety-six silent voices
Demanding to be heard
Refusing to be blown by the wind
Or washed away by the rain
Her old uniform still hangs
From the back of the door they pushed open,
It’s never closed in her mind.
Wide-eyed, blinking back tears
In that sports hall mortuary
Where grief echoed off the walls,
It hurts her soul still after all these years,
Her shame for the lies she was forced to tell,
To write in black and white to save the boys in blue.
But this year the blame is shifting,
She can tell her own truth too.
Maybe people will listen,
Maybe she could rewrite it at last.
*******
Seventy-Two Years Ago
By
Jason Barney