The stitched-up boy squats
Beside the broken brick, hands
Full of grimy Guinness glass.
The trick
Is to keep the light in play:
Easy enough to catch the sun,
But it won’t stick without blood.
He thinks
He can spark out a mask.
For miracles — wafers, wine —
One’s as good as two, as every
Other boy
Gets tugged at the seams,
Gutted open. The bottle shards
Make magic in the steam
Of their hearts,
Bare and beating like fish
Ripped up in the open market,
Heaved high on iron hooks out
Of the Irish Sea.
The boy breaks a piece
Of the bottle against the roof
Of his mouth with his tongue,
To let it melt
Down his throat like the Real Flesh
Of the everlasting lie. Any light
Worth the name will always find
A way
To burst back through the seams
Of any boy’s broken brain.
Easter 2010