Inquest
The tip up seats are
comfortably cushioned
rising in terraces to overlook
the heavy long shining table
where the coroner will sit
in the echoing room
we whisper in pairs
while the huge chandelier sparkles
and the wooden panels gleam
I am sweating slightly
even though I will not have to
climb the steps into the upright
coffin of the witness box
a small bald man in a black suit
follows the clerk into the court
in which we stand as instructed
he squeezes through the crevice
between the jury’s bench and his
foolscap sheets of paper
perfectly white
are laid out before him
where he sits
on them he rests his golden pen
the jury is sworn in
and told their duties
they are here to decide
how he died
this man we knew
but didn’t know
the railway policeman
is summoned
and the man with the gold pen
in a slow and polished voice enquires about
the condition of the tracks
and establishes where the dead man
had left his bike and that he
had been trespassing
in silence
he writes down the answers
and in the silence
the policeman looks in his notebook
which he rests on the witness stand
for his next speech
and delivers it on cue
the coroner’s pen rustles
across the paper
clearly in the silence
the facts are being recorded
the pathologist lists the injuries
and confirms they were consistent
with what he would expect
first one nurse
tells how he left the house
quietly and unobserved
then another
of the friendly cheerful meeting
at the gate at two o’clock
where he said `I must dash
I have a long way to go’
off he pedalled,
without telling anyone,
to catch his last train
the psychiatrist and the nurses
were caught completely by surprise
they state nothing he said
or did gave any warning
the train driver, who has brought
his union man with him and stays outside
the court room till the last moment
smoking,
had been well on time coming off the bridge
he didn’t see the man sitting with his back
against a tree until he stood
and when the man walked slowly towards the track
and waited for the goods train to bring
at forty miles an hour
its thirteen thousand tons
the driver knew
for this was the second time for him
that braking
sounding his warning horn again and again
could not change
the ending of this last act
the man at the very brink
stepped onto the sleepers
and disappeared where the line
and the wheel would meet
the jury from the verdicts
that are offered by the coroner
choose the one which says
he took his own life
he never asked them where to or why
Pete Hulme Text © September 2010
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