Austerity Mantra

            Everything must be on the table.

 Your ninety seven year old granny

            is no longer cost effective, would

benefit greatly from being brought face to face

            with a compassionate baseball bat.

The figures speak for themselves and will

            be worse by morning. The paraplegic

in his insanely expensive wheelchair

            will have to crawl as God intended.

Here are the figures that won’t stop

            speaking for themselves, this is the table

everything must be on. Yesterday my name was

            Temporary Fiscal Adjustment.

Tonight, the insect in the radio calls me

            The Inevitable. When the economist

puts his hand up, take care not to cough.

            Everything’s on the table and

the table’s tiny. I’d send you a pillow

            to hold hard over the child’s face

‘til the kicking stops, but at current rates

            there’ll be no pillow. I am the unthinkable

but you will think me. Pack her mouth

            with tea towels, hold down firmly

your old mildewed raincoat,

            ‘til there’s no more breath.

            Tomorrow I’ll be known as

Four Year Consolidation Package.

            Lock the cat in the oven and bake

at two hundred degrees centigrade.

            Tie your last plastic bag over

your own head. The figures speak for themselves

            and there is no table.

KEVIN HIGGINS

Salmon Poetry