Midnight Assassination

As he stares back behind the fast
-moving clouds at the large
moons of childhood’s upside down
Night field (all wild day
-eye stars), looking up all
At once from putting the milk
-bottles out, the half-asleep, middle
-aged man is shot
Dead.

Now how many loves
Have we lost – sharp, quick
-silver gulls, glinting in
The dawn-dark sky, like knives?

The dead are lying dead in my gut.

© Padraic Fiacc, Midnight Assassination 1977

Padraic Fiacc is frank about how he was personally stricken by the frequent reports of assassination. His poem recalls how disheartening the news of the Troubles were even for people at a remove from them.