Pit Closure as a Tarantino Short

The Suit who pulled the trigger
left a card between the victim’s fingers,
printed white and red, but Business Closed
was all it said.

He wiped his bloodless hands
against his shirt for show,
as if someone still watched him
as he made to go. And as he turned,

he met the dead man’s stare
and noticed, there, between those
two dark eyes, the bullet hole
made up a black ellipsis, then swore

he heard the dead man’s voice
above the heartbeat of the clock:
Nothing’s finished, only given up.
Before he left, he checked the lock.

Helen Mort was born in Sheffield in 1985. Her collection Division Street is forthcoming from Chatto & Windus. She has published two pamphlets with tall-lighthouse press, the shape of every box and a pint for the ghost, a Poetry Book Society Choice for Spring 2010. Five-times winner of the Foyle Young Poets award, she received an Eric Gregory Award from The Society of Authors in 2007 and won the Manchester Young Writer Prize in 2008. In 2010, she became the youngest ever poet in residence at The Wordsworth Trust, Grasmere.