Poetry

Cracking the Shits

Edith Speers

spend Christmas day with his brothers

let Buddha budge from Nirvana

and spend Mother’s Day with his mother

let Mother Teresa leave the calm of Calcutta

and organise a wedding with her sisters

and you will hear language or silences

that are hot and toxic enough to make paint blister

you might think you are a saint

whom nothing human can ever again bother

but try going on a Father’s Day fishing trip

with your own or a facsimile father

and all your peace and love and wisdom

or your toughness of broken-toothed mutton

means nothing to them for there’s nothing

like family for pushing your buttons