Carousel

After Roger Robinson

And every morning after that, a carousel of faces

appeared on the livestream – one by one insisting

they hadn’t been in charge, they hadn’t known,

they couldn’t recall that meeting, that warning,

things were tough at home, there would have been

someone else whose job it was to make sure –

it stood to reason, in such a wealthy country.

We got to know all the flimsy paper excuses,

held firm to the facts like a rosary, like a lamp-post

in a flood wholly foreseeable and foreseen.

There are only so many reluctant faces

you can scroll through before you realise

it’s actually all the same face, scowling as it says

you’re getting me confused with someone who gives a damn.

Meanwhile seventy-two lives were lost that day,

singular and precious to themselves.

Erica Hesketh