Can I forgive you, Mister Twister?
Mister fucking suave as butter
Mister Dapper Salt and Pepper
When you first pulled down her knickers
(Was she five or six or seven)
Hoisted up her best blue dress
Fixed her with your calm grey eyes
Stared her out, hypnotic master
While you broke her seal on life
Hammered in your nail and finger
Licked your lips and drew her under
One by one I watched them falter
Sister Sister Neighbour Wife
Watched them crack and fall asunder
O you played an Oscar blinder
Calm and noble in your grief
Even dared to loom in at her
Once again when death the thief
Had sunk another safe in earth
Can I forgive you, Mister Twister?
Does the goat forgive its killer
Does the bloody butcher eat
One day (may I live to see it)
Life will stab you in the neck
On the green beside the club house
Just before a perfect putt
Pain will sizzle through and numb you
Sky will tilt and pull you out
When you hear the final siren
And you eye the ruthless sun
See the midwife to the Furies
Smile and plunge her needles in

Vincent Woods is coediting, with Eva Bourke, an anthology of writing on music. His poems featured in the recent Leitrim Equation concerts in London, Dublin and Leitrim. He is a member of Aosdána