Damaged

Sweet summer days, when I was feeling so fine
Just you and me, girl, it was a beautiful time
Primal Scream, 1991

I’d wanted to ask, how you got those wounds, but I think it a bit forward

Still, you wear them proudly, standing silent amidst the traffic

Falling ordinance, settling dust, you breathed again

And so, what now? Well who cares when you wear it so well

‘Growing old disgracefully’, I think that’s what you said

And I’ve noticed similar scars; roofless, cavernous, monuments frozen to a time

Now none of us can recall - just what it felt like to gaze up to cloud, to see dangling terror

Air raid’s prolonged doom, faraway thuds, the whirring all-clear, dust, rubble, a distant scream

I look for gaps in the built-up, to piece together what was burned out before

All towns are damaged. Some wear it well, others do a good polishing it out

But I always just have to look, having read the books