The poem is often read as a memorial. An article in "The New Yorker" describes the poem as serving as the "elegy of the AIDS era" in the 1980s. It is the English contribution to the statue commemorating the Heysel Stadium disaster, where a retaining wall collapsed, resulting in 39 deaths on 29 May 1985, when Liverpool F.C. played Juventus F.C. in the European Cup final. Metropolitan Police Commissioner Cressida Dick read the poem in full at the funeral of police officer Keith Palmer, (1968 – 22 March 2017), who was fatally stabbed in the 2017 Westminster attack.