The Cardinal's Nephews
They started out like the rest of us, huns
of the vacant field behind the houses,
where our arrows punctured ancient mattresses
that wobbled drunkenly among the asters.
It wounded me to think about the cardinal’s brother
fornicating even once for each of all his sons,
but when they tied me in the staghorns
and ran their Matchbox cars over my feet, suddenly
it was me too melting in that fervour to breed an empire.
Then their hair grew out in jigsaws as the decade
kinked and snaked...until it was Saturday night
in smalltown downtown, all of them piled
like marsupials in the dim back seat. Their car
would be hawing at the curbside while the eldest
bopped into the liquor store for some Wild Irish Rose,
his strides filigreed with a little hiccup
every time he shucked the ballast of his Dingo boot.
Later, when they passed out where the rumpus rooms
gave way between the speakers, or when their car
barrelled into the lone tree that stood its ground,
I saw how power suffered its ignominies
with blustering or braking – think of Cesare Borgia
leading the cathedral’s Christ have mercies
in a tin mask after syphilis wrecked his face – these
were the ghosts of men who stood at the altar
wearing spurs and daggers underneath their pleats,
Romans come back now all leather fringe and eyelids
drooping in a rogue half-sleep. The miracle
was how by Sunday mass their mother always
righted them again. And bullied their hair
into nests like squirrels made, and strapped neckties
tight to hold their heads up. Then the rumbling
that was their usual singing, before the uncle’s name
drew through us like a knife, the uncle whose red cap
meant willingness to shed blood for the faith,
though at the time all I knew was its astonishing colour.
Page(s) 73-74
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