She Swallowed a Fly

By half past eight, he had snapped her neck
Like it was celery then looked my way,
‘Never meet the gaze of a madman’
Was my Gran’s advice so I turned
The other cheek and wondered how high
I could pull my collar up as added protection
In case not looking didn’t dissuade -
I know it was only a film and I was safe on the sofa,
But I still later went to bed clutching my own throat
On the memory, partly induced by an ill timed
Gory pause of his next victim in a neck tie
Stranglehold because my Mum rang on her return
From a week in Marbella, she was robbed
On a cobbled side street, she said, these events
Are never isolated, however, she said,
The other week whilst drinking fresh orange
Juice she choked on an unusually large piece of pulp
And had the Heimlich Manoeuvre performed on her
By Albert Williams, you remember,
The one who used to give you and your sister
Fifty pence when you were here on holiday,
You remember, but I don’t remember.
I told her it would have been a funnier story
If she’d swallowed a fly,
I don’t know why,
But it would have been funnier.

At ten o’ clock I watched a shark documentary
With suggestions for Great White Encounters –
These helpfully included: baring your own teeth at him or indeed, her
And punching him square and firm on the nose.

At 11.07 my new housemate told me that as he was strolling
Through Woolwich last month someone asked him the time,
He said he didn’t have a watch and the man replied,
“Well, that’s not fucking good enough, is it?”
And then hit him hard twice with a red baseball bat.
I gave him my Great White wisdom in earnest.

Around midnight a woman wearing earrings
That looked like onion rings from a distance
Under the neon signs that flash 24 hours, 24 hours,
Screamed in the street up to a flat above the Spar,
“Woman beater, woman beater, come down Woman beater”,
Everyone spilled out of their windows to watch
Until the spectacle subsided and then we all went back in again
As she marched off pushing her pram, dragging her toddler
By a chubby arm, my neighbour even went out to help.

At 1 am I ponder the fact that I’ve begun to go to bed later
And later, I’m worried that if I sleep
Something exciting will happen
And I’ll miss it,
Am becoming reliant on the vicarious voyeurism
Of the lives of others
And am uncertain whether to be grateful
For my own so uneventful.

At approximately quarter past one I discuss my analysis
With Housemate II who doesn’t want to be
In this poem, he snapped a tooth in half
On Saturday whilst eating a baguette,
Which are more dangerous than you’d think,
You might be able to kill with a French stick,
Although I’ve never actually tried,
Plus he says I should ask Andrew’s permission
Before I say he got hit with a bat for not having a watch,
But I said it’s ok, he’ll never read this anyway.