Winter sun winking through trees,
making me blink into the morning light.
Snow crunching underfoot,
Good morning Niamh, my usual please.
Outside a smoker sits in the cold,
blows a cloud into the crisp blue air,
inhales deep, deep down,
suppresses a cough like it’s gonna burst out.
Out from his chest, like that guy in Alien,
he got hurt, he was Hurt, but he didn’t heal.
Inside, three Americans talk loudly.
Their conversation pervades the space,
drawing all into the minutiae of their health issues,
their cars, their houses, their kids, and their huge refrigerators.
That’s fridges to you and me, to me and you.
All on tap with shiny lights, tinsel and a crisp white finish.
Pasteurised, crystalised, homogenised,
all of the above, and more, much more than that.
They were sick before Christmas, all of the house, even the mouse.
The cough was bad, had it for days, weeks even, weeks odd.
Antibiotics, fluids and water, plenty of rest,
humidifier and zinc, don’t forget the zinc.
Bedbound, the whole house, never felt as bad, etc, etc.
‘Twas like a scene from another film,
or was it a book, a poem or something else, whatever.
Woman sits down near me,
near me on a high stool, she’s no fool,
I can tell from the way she’s eating her creme brulee.
She’s from Bofeenaun, on the phone.
At home, she’s doing a few rooms up, up to high doh.
The big one upstairs and the one on the left, with the sticky door,
the second left, don’t forget that.
The men are coming, coming today, over the hills, from far away,
with vans and drills and breakfast rolls and stuff.
But Marie-Claire is still in bed, she won’t get up.
Will someone please wake her, it’s half past ten
on January the ninth.
That middle-aged guy with the funny hat,
always sits in the middle seat, like this, like that.
With a limp, walking with limps, like all of them do,
left hip or right hip, but mostly right hip, from what I can see.
His middle-aged belly all tucked in with a brown leather belt.
Eating toasty toast from a styrofoam tray, some crisps on the side,
it smells of cheese, cheesy cheese and way too many calories.
On a slightly related topic, you all know how I feel about cheese.
I love it, nearly married it once, maybe twice.
but had to bow out, it’s not the brie, it’s me.
Well that’s another story,
for another day, another planet.
Remind me to tell you and the only ones sometime.
The Americans, they’ve gone a bit quiet, quietly quiet.
Maybe about 8 or 9 on the Spinal Tap scale, or thereabouts.
Because you see, you see, the discussion has turned to,
Greenland, Panama, Keir Starmer, and the Gulf of Mexico
or is it the Gulf of America, I guess we’ll know in two weeks.
It’s not from a movie, unfortunately, this time.
Apparently, it’s all coming apart, coming apart,
apart at the seams, according to the Americans.
It is the way it is, now and forever, and ever and ever,
Amen
