Reading Sean O’Brien in the Bath
On the first floor of an ex-council house
this fat, pink alkie reads O’Brien in the bath.
At his shoulder the pint glass of cider mocks
his sweating face. The cold tap drips – he lifts
his eyes from the book – for how long
it’s dripped he’s not clear. Each drop
a year: he counts through teens and twenties,
stops at mid-thirties, leans and halts the drops
with one twist. I could write a poem, he thinks,
if I could break habits, routines, totter
forward, baby-like and lift a title to work from.
He’s kidding himself of course; a day off the sauce
is a year on a chain gang – the hammer
chipping away. His reverie is smashed
as our hero wakes to the fact
that something is amiss; had he hauled his bulk
out from the tub just to take a piss?
Brett Evans lives, writes and drinks in his native north Wales. His poems have appeared in various magazines and he was a runner up in the 2012 Cardiff International Poetry Competition. He co-edits Prole.