Then up loud, bare-board stairs to find the loo.
Fully awake now he peers down into
Stained porcelain, the filthy toilet’s throat,
Its exhalations lifting in his face
As memories rise too, sharp as a knife:
The porch of Peter’s Church, his student loan
And, oh God, did he suck Fat Kenny’s prick?
He’s overwhelmed. It’s all too much, too quick.
Den retches and with a despairing moan,
In its entirety, throws up his life
For some few minutes, doubled in a crouch,
Then flushes. In the rattling pipes, trapped air
Bellows in anguish like a minotaur.
Mouth wiped, Den clumps back down to the ground floor
And the mauve gloom of a hushed front room where
Fat Kenny still sleeps, supine, on the couch,
Extinguished pipe clasped in one pudgy hand.
Though keen to leave, Den feels it only right
To say goodbye. “I’m off, then.” No reply.
He notices a flat, green-bellied fly
Orbit the still, shaved skull and then alight
But though he sees he does not understand
Why his host shows no sign of coming round.
“I said I’m going.” Den begins to feel
Uneasy and as he steps closer spies
The motionless breast and unblinking eyes.
With realisation comes a shattering peal
Of sudden dreadful and incessant sound,
A circling and swooping banshee roar
That shivers glass and sets dogs barking but