Jerusalem

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