Portugal, The Boy. By John Doyle

You ask me "how did your game go?"

as you continue to cheat, dropping cards, reshuffling;

When I arrived, the ground was empty 

for the second time that week,

first at the Estádio Algarve,

when you watched me from the city limits,

scratched your talons

on a spinning globe that drew blood from Atlas's spine

and made men of cloth

rip off their vows to God.

You continued to cheat at cards

as the Estádio Municipal de Lagos

became a grotesque lung that sucked

the camper vans from all around it,

and I drew my guns

for the second and last time

as the Ace of Spades caught fire

and the bullet hole in your heart

smoked like

Von Richthofen's wreckage.

There it ended -

like the word - Fin - draped across the coffin of a 1950s French film,

and I walked away from Portugal, the boy

and I wondered what it would be like to listen to Portugal, The Man

John Doyle became a Mod again in the summer of 2017 to fight off his impending mid-life crisis; whether this has been a success remains to be seen. He has has two collections published to date, A Stirring at Dusk in 2017, and Songs for Boys Called Wendell Gomez in 2018, both on PSKI's Porch.