Sniper

am tucked up here out of sight. I am tucked up here
in the bel-tower of Our Lady of Retribution: my own space
well-stocked and arranged just so. Ihis 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-mus, 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. I hen a child, out into clear
view, going a long 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 tingers supple. Days pass.
T'm more than content in my snuggery, my lair,
Thave somewhere to lay my head and somewhere to piss
and, for comic disputation, the birds of the air.

With the scope pulled up to my eye, the world is close
and particular: this grandad, hugging the shade, each hair
on his head, the wet ot his eye, the pre-war
cOin on his fob-chain, the weave of his coat... Over there
by my triend the Marlboro Man is where
would sit with my morning cottee: Arno's place,
its pinball machine, its jukebox, the girl with Madonna's tace
until she showed her teeth; I would tilt my chair
to the wall and fake the sun. Ihey go in tear. Ihey go in tear
ot me. And where they go they go by my good grace.

am fucked up here with plenty left in store.
Ihe night-sky tloods then clears, tlagging a single star,
and the ity seffles fo silence under myY peace.
The woman, the child, the grandad, are nothing... or nothing more
fhan what history can ignore, or love erase.