Just To Make Sure Poem by Maria Barnas

July 8, 2005 LONDON - London struggled back Friday after bombings. Much of London was eerily quiet. Bombed stations were shrouded in security curtains, and refrigerated trucks waited outside to cart away bodies.
The streets are stirring all the same. Interrupt me.

Although we wormed our way out of the city along the Thames
in tremendous curves we were prepared for everything.

Feel free to leaf through the storeys, fold a dog-ear
in the shaft of a lift. Make thick leaden drops out of metal
and plunge in nosedives. Pitfalls.

Capital letters hardly keep up with the bombs.
Mistake me.

They are sitting like sandwiches in Tesco carrier bags
where I - here we go.

We were ready for it we were prepared for everything
and we stayed eerily quiet.

We had planned the pits well before
and meticulously scraped ruins of streets and houses
out of stone. Sliced a shell out of square just to make sure
and hacked stairs out of underground steps in the opposite direction.

Someone doubted it but when the time came it began.

The bombs landed in their place.

Translation: 2008, Donald Gardner