Remember, Remember

We built our martyr from scratch
a shell suit stuffed with the Evening News
a Halloween mask,
a balloon head
a bin bag cape, your sisters wig
and a witches hat.
We rolled him around the estate
like a dead headline in a pram
called out
‘Penny for the Guy’
but we were aware of inflation
and managed to buy sparklers
we took him to the place of execution
a tepee of propped up old doors
you wriggled in to check for hedgehogs
that was you
I stayed back afraid of collapse.
We watched his face slowly burn
and it was both of ours,
arms extended out, we wrote his name with fire in the thick air
and then our own in the moment
the boy who was my friend, now ten years dead
with a constellation of needle marks in his arms.
I write your name every year
and then watch it disappear.