That your son at Trinity College
may
graduate
to become a rogue gynaecologist.
That his brother, the paediatrician,
be suspended without pay.
That
your husband be caught
selling wheelchairs that don’t work
live on national radio. And the day
you discover all of the above, may
the traffic wardens, every one of them,
be East Galway Gestapo. May you lose
your
winning ticket,
and the gun not go off
when it’s supposed to.
May your reflux be acid
and your bowel be cranky.
May your water forever be cloudy
and
the pharmacy be shut.
May the funeral parlour
refuse you,
and the lies you told haunt you
long after the cat
has made a litter tray of your ashes.
Kevin Higgins is co-organizer of Over The Edge literary events in Galway, Ireland. He teaches poetry workshops at Galway Arts Centre, Creative Writing at Galway Technical Institute, and is Creative Writing Director for the National University of Ireland – Galway Summer School. He is poetry critic of The Galway Advertiser. His poetry is discussed in The Cambridge Introduction to Modern Irish Poetry and features in the generation defining anthology Identity Parade –New British and Irish Poets (Ed. Roddy Lumsden, Bloodaxe, 2010) and in The Hundred Years’ War: modern war poems (Ed. Neil Astley, Bloodaxe, April 2014). The Stinging Fly magazine recently described Kevin as “likely the most read living poet in Ireland.” He has published five collections of poetry with Salmon, most recently Song of Songs 2.0: New & Selected Poems (2017).
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