Because I was a tourist
When I should have been a traveller,
I have downloaded an App -
Ten thousand steps per diem
For a passer-by who by-passed
Roads that were unmapped.

So I set out in my sins,
The betrothals, the betrayals,
The lightweight mortal signs,
The venial avoirdupois
And the defiling virtue
Of never committing crime.

Yet a downpour has wiped the slates
Of the mortgaged home I inhabit
And the ivy’s emerald tendrils
Have tightened their grip on April.
The mountains too have come nearer.
They are hospitable.

And the hunch-backed magnolia
Hums a prohibited Gloria
To the fresh cement in the yard
Although it is still only Lent
With no word of vestment or vigil
And no clocks forwarded.

We are doomed. We are not damned.
The offal and the vowels
Of a Boomer’s life on Zoom -
His pills with their porn-star names,
His chinos from Cambodia,
His loafers from Vietnam -

Are those of the boy sent home
From an Irish school in the Gaeltacht
For speaking in church Latin.
He has not stopped declining.
He has not stopped conjugating.
He is still at it.

Aidan Mathews is a poet, novelist, short story writer and dramatist. His most recent collection of poems is Pure Filth (Lilliput Press)