mist

Wringing hands.
Glee unmasked.
“And when I’m with Jesus,” you said,
“In Heaven, and you are begging for water,
we’ll spare not a drop.
Not a drop!”
Your eyes shone like a five-year-old on
Christmas morning.
You skipped.
You hopped.

When I told Brooklyn Mo, she said a demon took possession
of your soul.
Did it slip on a wind from Bantry Bay to Derryleigh?
On a black night when Mick Dineen stumbled up the moonless road
from Sneem House?
Your mother sent you to help.
Into the mist.
Loved as a Seanchaí when holding court,
but alone, in the dark, his wit dead
as the heifer's bones in the creek.
He whispered —
porter on his breath,
breath filthy with hair,
breath with the weight
of a brick of turf,

“Do ye think the old bitch will fuck me tonight?”

Words cut like a sharpened sleán.

In the seam
between vulgar tongue and touch
slips the demon
seeking a child.

My train gets to Hicksville at eight
where there are people to meet,
and water awaits.

Burn in Gehenna, beast.
Leave this woman.
Your eight tongues have weakened her gums
and left her teeth
in an apple.
Its core rotten
as the bitch that bore