New York City: March 13th, 1978

by John Doyle

He will make fast friends in his new place

Michael Schulman

That land your face has sold crumbled its milk bottles today

trying to scar our feet to feel that pain the people

who refuge upstairs steal from your face

that hired out its haunted crevice,

many of them standing there, not knowing today

could be the day nothing came hunting for;

except you, so real and so swollen,

your beauty

has forgotten the milk bottle shapes of your body,

crumbled,

bleeding our feet on rat-piss heavens.

Newspapers, red and angry by your bones,

blow and blow

and smash on walls in blocks people who dream of somewhere else

hide from your mysteries in, psychopaths who find ladders made from tears

John Doyle is from County Kildare in Ireland. He returned to writing poetry in February 2015 after a gap of nearly 7 years. Since then, he's had 10 collections released, including Leaving Henderson County, in 2020, and A Word in Your Fear in 2024. He is writing his first novel at present and works as a librarian.