10th of October, Time Immemorial
Revenge is sweet? My arse! You’ll suck it sour.
Go, lug fruit home – observe it breed a bowl
of maggot-writhe. My fly coachload, winged-black
with foul disease will batter down your panes.
Those jells will whersh, and piddle thin; your pies
will turn; your crumbles whiff of piss; your tarts
fall festering, and stink; they’ll dribble bloodied inks.
Do pour a wine – that rancid fruit shall make
mere vinegar seem fine, and any thought
of winter liquor – gone! Aground and bruised
I pluck out spines and curse. Of course you know
me, shit-brain! I spit my vengeance, darkest gob!
Hell won’t mend ye, bastard bramble bush!
Beth McDonough’s poetry appears in Agenda, Causeway, Interpreter’s House and elsewhere; she reviews in DURA. Handfast (2016, with Ruth Aylett) explores family experiences – Aylett’s of dementia. and McDonough’s of autism. She was recently Writer in Residence at Dundee Contemporary Arts.
atriumpoetry.com 