Michael Daugherty
To the Bastards who were only Punters
for Maggie
Hers was a world of manicured lawns
and pedicured poodles, impure whims
upon which she was born to perform
rather than merely act. Poverty,
as I recall, was the only sin
she could not find it in her heart to
forgive nor, sadly, ever quite see
as an expiable memory,
forgettable, something at which Who’s
Who wouldn’t give a sniff. She died mourned
by a reckless few who knew a thing
or two about the distance between
whim and wish, brief desire and deep blue
unspeakable need. The queen of dreams,
the whore of all hangovers, she schemed
her way into no more than the way
things were in those just as good as bad
days our children will want to have had
when it’s too late. I think I might pray,
if I still possessed the knack of faith,
not so much for her immortal soul
as perhaps just a sup, a last taste,
from a cup designed by an odd God
to be filled, vilified, overflow
into so many mouths the right shape
for the moment. She did a good job
of her suicide: the blood flowed
like Pernod after the landlord’s nod
that the lock-in is on. So they say,
the punters who know I never paid.
Page(s) 49-50
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