And that lost son of Jacob's got to cross the Styx
to legalise things Salvation Army mercenaries were doing in his name,
like that woman cycling in the hurricane
to get vodka for her son,
to get whiskey for herself
and rosary beads for the devil
who knew what he was doing all his life would backfire
on him on the final page,
the devil was smarter than we thought,
he wasn't going to end up burning forever in his own hometown,
he just wasn't that good at mending punctures either,
turning his face away on that ferry
as Jacob's mother kneeled by her bicycle weeping,
worried someone would find out what magazines
his poetry was published in;
I sympathised, yes, empathised - not too much,
still asking myself what Heidegger asked me
when the wheels were hanging off our own wagons -
what does an asexual Bad Company fan do,
when they play Feel Like Makin' Love?
John Doyle was born in 1975 and is from County
Kildare in Ireland. He lives in Dublin with his wife and his dog, and
has had eight poetry collections published since 2017. He works as a
magazine reporter.
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