The Mall, by kennardphillips
By Michael Rosen
Yvette Cooper is ‘troubled’.
She says she’s ‘troubled’.
She’s been on TV saying she’s ‘troubled’.
What’s troubling her, it seems
is that Israel is killing people in Lebanon.
I wonder if that really is what’s troubling her.
Perhaps what’s troubling her
is that the British government ‘stands by Israel’
but hardly anyone else is.
Perhaps what’s troubling her
is that she knows she can’t go on and on
turning up in studios and in the House of Commons
justifying what Israel is doing.
Perhaps she feels that Israel has
let her down.
“After all we’ve done for you, Israel
and now you go and do something beastly
that I can’t justify.”
So Yvette Cooper is ‘troubled’.
And it’s all been such a surprise.
Up till now
everything that Israel has done
since the 1940s
has been great.
This poem is from Words Out Loud (forthcoming), Michael Rosen’s follow-up to Words United. Profits from both books go to Medical Aid for Palestine.
