John McKenna’s most recent poem to appear here was “An Account of the first of Summer’s Muse: releasing the spell of the secular she that came before her” (May 2016)

Belfast
By John McKenna

I.

“Do you remember
quick sunny summer Belfast, johnny?”

“Now, do you?”

I remember
racing metal bike
peddles like mad

when

6 clicks
6 caps
6 quick
6 pops
5 misses
1 hit

and Francie’s body
off the handlebars
and over the shoulder
like a whip quick bed sheet

like a piece of laundry
to the wind
up in angles unimagined

II.

and the thud 

louder still
than the echo crack
of the shots
screams that
flooded the street

he looked so
awkward

like he had fallen
from some place much higher

his face was away

I screamed silent leaned down crept sprawled and crawled
rushed up beside him quick desperate and

crept quiet went around,
not to disturb him,
and saw first that he had knocked out clear
at least three of this front teeth
from that crooked kid crazy mouth smile

and then I saw that his left eye was missing
like someone had smashed a plum into his eye socket

and slow blood poured
pooled
halo

a colour dark as Malbec on tar

and suddenly again boom
volume in full
and time accelerated

my heart still rising running racing
and Francie’s

quick already to sleep

III.

“Do you remember sweet summer sunny Belfast, johnny?

“yes, and with every bead of the Rosary, I do.”

IV.

and each bead
I claim retribution

again repeated, this Rosary
order in reverse,

wishing only that they reach
the hand of their maker
and that they be smited
for what they have done,
killed
and
wasted
here.

V.

“I remember sunny summer quick Belfast—and you Terry?
What do you remember?”

“I remember nothing since.”