Milltown Cemetery, 16th March 1988

You were thirteen, arms wrapped tight
around your knees, crouched 
in against a headstone. Another wee child
was hiding beside you.

You were white as a ghost in the footage,
but I knew it was you.
I’ve seen it before, that clip.
The camera finds and leaves you fast.

Last night, thirty years on,
I paused you. I took a screenshot.
I don’t know why I gather evidence
like that day isn’t chiselled on my mind.

You had gone to the funeral with your family.
I was hanging around our street with the girls,
pretending the unarmed three had not been
shot dead on a far off rock,

were not now cold in boxes
down the road,
being shouldered by mourners
crammed under helicopter skies.

Something sent us fleeing inside
to find the radio. We pulled in close
to the airwaves, half-believing our presence
might make a difference.

We caught the sound of the intruder
shooting, stoning the graves with grenades.
We couldn’t hear your breathing
amidst the booming,

couldn’t find your voice in the screaming,
we couldn’t know you were camouflaged
against death’s door
and would walk away in one piece.

Helen McSherry is a Belfast poet living in Cardiff. Her poems have appeared in publications in Britain and Ireland. Growing up in West Belfast during The Troubles has a rich influence on Helen’s writing and her work within communities.