A Responsibility to Truth.

(For Edward Snowden)

White, black, black, white,

truth, lies, wrong, right.

I tell you my name,

you who are ordinary,

the travellers, the stay-at-homes,

the small and passive, faceless

shoals, caught in a net of lies.

I give you scissors and a filleting knife.

Ask where I am.

Black, white, white, black,

someone won’t be coming back.

I tell you my name,

you who are honourable,

the venerable old, the industrious young,

the not so innocent and hardly guilty,

fools and sacrificial lambs.

I give you a responsibility to truth.

Ask what happened to me.

Lesley Quayle is a poet, novelist and folk/blues singer, currently living and  working in the wilds of rural Dorset. Her most recent poetry collection “Sessions” is published by Indigo Dreams.