A lunch break, once,
reading the paper on a car-park wall.
But our man sits. Requests a cigarette
to accompany to his lager,
subsidise his throat which
stretches outward with compliments to strangers;
or just
grown accustomed from sacrifice;
his vertebrae expand until there’s
somewhere for her knife to reach
its imaginary home. Mumbled, he did, to start.
Though as the language leaned
drunkenly towards declaration,
the words staggering
downwards front-of-stage
to right themselves;
His brain spewing gasps at such a speed
for a nullified tongue to struggle with,
and so: The man
- whose dreams flowed past him each night,
stained the rim of his sheets
nicotine with their unpleasantness;
for their understanding of restraint hadn’t ripened, quite
- still green and unsweetened -
And the bitterness of concrete
rested, all pervading, inescapable,
forged the background -
had murdered his wife; the one who heaved her thighs
till they slapped on his own;
and the dog that lay down -
sniveling and neglected -
by the bedside. Life -
times three -
the judge had declared;
Survive the first two
for the man and your dog,
I’d have you serve a third for the wife. (You see,
the judge missed his mutt
and felt lonely that day -
a toothache for want of some pliers.
Purged, though, now,
he thought.)
And provided a lift
To an old stone-walled place
down in Brixton . . .
where the dreams flowed
Bile-tipped. And after eight months,
he turned to our man, and said: Don?
- Yeah?
Eight months.
- Yes.
Eight months I’ve been here.
Remembering my slag -
tits trembling like jelly on trains -
her half toothless grin
like she’d fucked John the Baptist . . .
- Yeah.
an’ now I have been here eight months.
How much longer? But our man stayed quiet
(though with me his eyes rolled back
into his skull)
and somewhere
tried to imagine
three lifetimes
on ten fingers. Remember this. Don’s own love -
his bastion of wife -
had upped him one morning
by breaking his jaw in two places,
belted a tooth out
with her razor-scarred fists -
and crack-seared heart -
(I fucking luv her - he told me - I do).
And while nursing his pain
with a fresh pint, alone,
he was nicked by a tap on his shoulder
- the cold announcement of his name.
Domestic - they said.
Your wife called us - they said.
Done for battery and other excuses.
Yeah domestic you cunts - he replied -
She did me -
and showed them the gorges
her nails had made
as they streaked down his cheek
and his neck
(I luv her - he told me - I do)
Big man you are, then - said they;
and shoved him
wrists cuffed,
arms held,
head pushed beneath the car’s rim
to avoid claims of blue brutality,
and whispered him through lanes of silent traffic
for review. (This story’s true - he said - I swear it is.) And when the white-coat stopped
swabbing blood off his bark,
taping claw marks closed,
muttering oaths of hypocrisy -
he left.
-Door closed
Our man
-But unlocked
Pale thigh-length gown
-To disclose what was sacred to others. ( 314 fights - he said.
Lost four.
And hit me in the shoulder
with a boulder he called his fist.) - I did a runner,
clothes balled in one arm.
A runner - down the hallway;
anonymous here, he thought, amongst gowns. Remember this. They nobbled him on Vauxhall bridge;
running. Slam.
Legs split apart.
Whap.
Chained, again. You see he’d called his wife
and said where he crouched;
which she lovingly muttered to them
- Vauxhall Bridge. This time without policeman’s courtesy,
this time inside the car,
one holding each arm,
Wham - in the kidneys,
Wham - in the stomach
(Avoid the face -
though it held her bruises jealously).
That all you got, you cunts?
He whispered, smiled,
drooling through a cracked jaw.
So they assured him
with whatever was at hand
that it wasn’t.
(314 fights - he said again quietly - lost four)
Funny thing about Vauxhall
(he turned,
touched a finger to his temple)
My brother would’ve been sixty now.
Sixty - he gasped.
Shot himself.
(Whistles as the bullet passes through
- giggles - touches the exit)
Right through here,
the stupid cunt.
Right on Vauxhall bridge.
(And quieted)
Would’ve been sixty
(looks over)
He lost some money.
(and pauses for effect)
You know.
250 thousand! (and laughs)
Right on Vauxhall bridge.
Course, wasn’t his money - I mean -
250 grand - if you lost that - what would you do?
(So puckers his lips, and whistles
as he sees the bullet pass through
from temple to temple,
and thinks:
whatever else there was -
in the time of Kray breath, and Kray walk, and Kray strength -
must have been worse.) Twenty feet away,
and shrouded by her own concern,
a young grandmother asks
her friend for the time,
or caresses her softly with a greeting.
It’s difficult to know.
Our man snaps around -
You asking me?
Oi - luv - us gorgeous things?
(And smacks me sideways with his joviality -
which he calls his fist.)
She bends her lips - smile like - bows, and walks on. - She stabbed me through the hand -
he turns and lifts his palm to show
an inch of old-healed scar
his wife once gave him.
- And once she woke me up by
sticking me, right here, with a machete -
and tugged his nylon shirt
above the navel.
Two inches white
beneath the hole
that he once first pulled life through.
(I fucking love her - he told me - I do.) But this time when she came at 2am,
punching him with threats of suicide,
and grinning of her lover’s righteous cock,
- you might as well fuck off -
she said
- fuck, do -
(Our man with old dreamt eyes, pulling them open)
- Why don’t you hit me?
Punch my teeth in
Like my father
when he fucked me?
(You think I’m joking, he says, that fucking pig
raped her
- over and over) - Leave - she lobs at him
with her open palm;
Nails turned faceward
so closes his eyes
to avoid being blinded;
her lungs leap through
her teeth
- get out -
grabs shirt
- out -
shove
somewhere, something clatters,
falls, and breaks. And the air outside
substitutes for absence, and so
wraps his seamless feet
and burrows its head on his shoulder
as once she did
before the fighting took her. - She wrote to me then
whilst I bided my days
with a man with three murders,
three lifetimes,
and eight months out of eternity.
Said
Another.
She had, now.
Fucked another when she wished,
and this man truly loved her
(though if that meant
he smacked her toothless,
or what remained,
he couldn’t rightly guess) Have a fag, he says,
and offers one of mine. - That’s it. That’s why I’m here.
(Head bowed to paving stones,
His misery trips his mouth into a smile,
as if when one tike kneeled, another pushed;
and with a vicious laugh leapt out of reach.
A can of lager in one hand
which after hours stays unfinished.) I have to go, I say, my lunch break’s done. No, stay - he spits, as if his tears
had not yet reached up far enough,
but gathered in his throat to be gobbed out. - you see,
I think of my mate sitting in his cell,
his wife and her man dead for a sentence,
and . .
kill her
I could
right now
that’s why I’m here.
If I go home to her . . .
(and pauses for that she, that he called home)
I never laid a hand on her till now.
(and pauses for a bunk in stone-walled Brixton,
that was his home, if only for a while)
And half of me says I should kill myself.
(and pauses for his brother, half of himself)
I thought on Vauxhall bridge, for old time’s sake.
Just leap . . . So stay - he says - and sit with me.
314 fights, and I lost four. - here -
(And grabs my hand -
clench -
revolves his wrist vertically
two upright fists -
clench -
and in a moment of companionship,
smashes those fists against his stubbled jaw -
forgetting that it’s broken -
squeals - Ow!
as if to say -
I owe you one in pain -
where once he learned to dole out his suffering
for friendship) - I’m at my end - he says - and so come here.
To sit, and drink, to keep from going back - - What would you do?
(He asks again, although
I’ve kept my mouth pinned shut. He turns, and has a tear
stuck like grit beside his near-gouged eye,
the scratch marks, scabbed, are traced from hair to jaw,
run parallel and finger spaced along
their testament.
And old tattoos fade azure on his arm) - Kill her,
or kill myself,
or talk with you? copyright, © 2006 Moby Pomerance | 
