I am tucked up here out of sight. I am tucked up here
in the bell-tower of Our Lady of retribution: my own space
well-stocked and arranged just so. This tower was raised in the year
blank-blank, the year of the crow, the year of our disgrace.
I am tucked up here in the shadow of the cross
with my ear-muffs, with my quilt and palliasse,
kneeling up but looking down, like a man at prayer.

A woman carrying water crosses the square.
She is running slowly, running not to spill. Then a child, out into clear
view, going along diagonal and running like a hare
jink-jink. I am tucked up here, a sure thing, with my sausage and beer
and a field-stove to keep my fingers supple. Days pass.
I’m more than content in my snuggery, my lair;
I have somewhere to lay my head and somewhere to piss
and, for comic disputation, the birds of the air.

With a scope pulled up to my eye, the world is close
and particular: this grandad, hugging the shade, each hair
on his head, the wet of his eye, the pre-war
coin on his fob-chain, the weave of his coat…Over there
by my friend the Marlboro Man is where
I would sit with my morning coffee: Arno’s place,
its pinball machine, its jukebox, the girl with Madonna’s face
until she showed her teeth; I would tilt my chair
to the wall and take the sun. They go in fear. They go in fear
of me. And where they go they go by my good grace.

I’m tucked up here with plenty left in store.
The night-sky floods then clears, flagging a single star,
and the city settles to silence under my piece.
The woman, the child, the grandad, are nothing…or nothing more
than what history can ignore, or love erase.


Sniper
David Harsent