Crossfire
North London café,
a barrel jams
life spared.
No witness speaks.
Decades of silence,
Hackney, Tottenham,
streets marked
by feud and fire.
Evin Restaurant,
six shots scatter,
three men fall,
diners scatter.
A child,
ice cream in hand,
bullet in her head
she breathes still.
Names carried:
Mustafa, Kenan, Nasser,
Ahmet the shopkeeper.
Communities mute,
fear pressing lips closed.
Violence circles,
year after year.
The innocent wait,
caught between
aim and stray.