Responsibility Claimed

The triggered revelation of death
Opened their eyes,
Tongues of shrapnel burnt with truth --
Knives through butter spreading realisation.
The peeled physiques of vulnerability
Screaming injustice,
Innocent eyes melted in sockets.
Instantaneous initiation into the most
Inexclusive club around:
The dead.

The car flickered with a yolk of flame,
Its shell cracked,
The body inside lifeless --
He'd been told to drive or his family died,
His smeared cheeks and bleared eyes
Followed the road until he
Stopped dead...
The clocks hands came together
And the clap called for no encore --
This was the final act.
The curtains of flame sprang up
And out;
Conflict's flower bloomed in the street.

The prone bodies of horses,
Riderless,
Littered the streets:
Foam flecked lips pulled back over teeth.
The incendiary device was owned by the --
Who claimed responsibility,
Regretted innocent deaths
And left a family mourning
With a husband and father
Already cremated for his funeral.