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David Morley

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Reprisal

From A Belfast Kiss

He had a job, was on the long uphill
from dole, testing the composure of brick walls
in the burned-out terraces of Shankill.
Starlings refurbished their former shit-holes.
The pigeons were already in place, like slates.
Graffiti was washed from the peace line that evening:
red/white/blue/green blood sopped from a guillotine.
When he knocked through a wall, saw the crates
of petrol lined up for milking, when he
legged up the road for the RUC,

he had a job, was on the long uphill from dole;
he was testing the composure of brick walls.
Pigeons and starlings bickered like motives,
flattering his eye with nondescript colour.
He had a job, was on the long uphill,
when neighbours came round, took him to the Falls,
and left him, bellowing, in his own tom semen
in the muck of a safe house, scratched from a cellar.
He was in a dark river, testing the composure of salmon,
when a hook twitched him sideways. He had to dive.

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