Bad blood

They pick me up in the City of Saints
swarming my car, hands on the door

bulging eyes, the gunfire
of rainfall. In stony English:

You come. A slithery pack, we jog
in an SUV, sleep on dusty foam.

Like a disturbed dream I’m shifted
place to place. They hide me

in forest, now in a sun-shot villa.
A few nights on a pirated trawler;

grumble, soft slap of dark waves.
They have no plan. They smoke, rattle

curses, giggling play princes.
I tell them I have to take a piss.

Sweating under a mosquito net,
rage. I wear it like irons. I say

Criminals disgust like castrated men.
After, turned up loud, these words

cycle my head while plastic
sheeting is thrashed by the wind.

I am afraid. Or we squat voiceless
weighing shut-in, desiccated lives

freedom a rumour. One evening
as the city lights its lamps, Boss

you must die, they croon, then group
pearl-toothed to watch me.

If you cannot keep me better, I say
I will get new men to guard me.

--
Twitter: @ianjmclachlan
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