So this Mick on the next stool,
who’s as serious as Yeats
but looks like Wilde,
stares at me, with eyes crossed,
sips Guinness through the foam,
burps and says, “I’ll bet that growth is cystic.
If it were my nose, I’d light this match,
hold a straight pin over it
and prick it. Poof! There’d be
a belch of goat cheese, sure.
What of it? You’d need a Q-Tip,
maybe a drop of p’roxide.
But in two weeks new skin would bloom
smoother than a baby’s bum.
With your luck, Yank, it would freckle.”

© Donal Mahoney, 2010

[others]