For years, I was buff confident with not a whit
of a reason in the world. Today, my self-doubts
are like the heron’s prey in the long wavy grass
by the lake’s edge at Malahide. The swan looks on
with zero compassion as the hunter picks my weaknesses
off and scoffs them whole in its ruthless beak, one by one.

Wet slippery foliage Sunday morning
boom-box middle age get back in
shape hairy legs gyrate to Ride On
Time but obviously they should have
been here last night between the soccer
kit storage container with the sex wall graffiti
Daddy harder please and the goalposts which
divide life like a cross between the haves and the have
nots. My big-balled Lothario sniffs at the used
Durex wrapper as if he too in his own animal fashion
can see the whole Biblical scene repeat ad nauseam just
like his owner can.