Steve Mangan

ONE OF TWELVE

When he called me, he called me his lover:

entrapped me in his cloak of Tyrean purple.

He dipped his bread and fed me,

"Is it me, Lord?” I asked.

He kissed me, and sighed, and said "Yes".

His breath was a whiff of burnt rubber

that hung round my head as a flaming tyre.

Now I hang by my heel on the pathway,

counting time between death and the lion:

hang here, accurséd, and smile.