Dynamite day

by Mark Ryan Smith

When the bomb goes off
the game stops
like a spot-the-ball.

Smoke rises
from the latest wound
in the quarry’s wall

and one of the boys
scores an easy goal.
‘Hey! That doesn’t count.’

‘Like fuck it doesn’t,’
and the game
kicks back into life.

Up in the quarry
JCBs nose
the blast’s spill,

while the smoke
is dragged through
thirty years –  

a cut-and-paste package,
ready-made, for New York,
Baghdad or Tel Aviv.