I should pick my nose more often
bleed from my nose again and in a while
you drive illicit vehicles on hospital grounds
condemned to freedom, liberated by action.

Your acute failure unhorses you,
buried in another's ground, a fortress of want
alcohol-lined streets exercise your courtesy
eschewing the respectable, sugary comfort.

What religion sates you, what scripture
for now, for convenience, suits you best
half-arsed convictions making your point
between drugs and medication, a concoction stilled.

Orally dissatisfied, you move in like birth,
you chase orgasms like butterflies,
on being found detective, persist in banging
a baby's head to the floor, repeating the deed.

A reconstituted failure of your own volition
avoiding tasks and luxuries like an epidemic
camping out in winter, in days of famine
collating receipts to keep yourself sweet.

Your grave is unmarked in my memory.
Casual indifference, research fulfilled
guinea pigs of intercourse, a thing over with
I rejoin the human race, a functioning spirit. 

Patricia Walsh was born and raised in the parish of Mourneabbey, Co Cork, Ireland, and was educated in University College Cork, graduating with an MA in Archaeology in 2000. He is the author of a collection poetry, Continuity Errors (Lapwing Publications), and has been published in a variety of print and online journals, including The Fractured Nuance; Revival Magazine; Ink Sweat and Tears; Narrator International, and The Evening Echo. She has also published a novel, titled |The Quest for Lost Eire. www.questforlosteire.com