Cufflink

When the generic businessman lifts
His phone to his ear
His silver cufflink –
One of a pair he received on
Securing the Lyon contract –
Clips the light and sends
A sharp spark
Pinwheeling into a van driver’s eye.

The van – which bears the slogan
Alberson’s Drainage Solutions –
Leaves the road
And enters a mobile phone shop
Via the front window.

The saleswoman –
Just a girl, really, twenty-three
And studying art history –
Is not killed instantly
But pinned against the cash register,
Her legs buckled like ogre cudgels.
She cries out and her sinuses
Froth with the red stuff.

Meanwhile, a customer
Stands with her back against
The hands-free kits,
Shivering although it is summer,
And she can’t think so she dials
On instinct, her husband,
Though she knows he’s working:
One ring
Two rings
Darling?

And somewhere not so far from here
A generic businessman lifts
His phone to his ear
His silver cufflink
Slicing the light like a cutlass.