He came from an island once in Austria then in Italy
that turned into Yugoslavia and now belonged to Croatia

He earned some money playing football as a boy
and played football on the beach when he got here
and when he was older and bought a car
he went for drives in the country and lay under trees picnicking
a bottle of wine cooling in the stream

He followed Collingwood and the McGough boy
lived around the corner and like the McGough boy
he had a low centre of gravity as he loped around
the neighbourhood and without breaking stride
gave one of his long distance waves
with its barest of off-handed acknowledgment

He used to be a concreter then became a barber
and sold lotto tickets but not cigarettes
Like concreting barbering needs a steady hand
In the shop he sang along with Jussi Björling
sometimes waving the comb around not conducting
sort of illustrating the music’s brazen gusto
same as when he used the comb telling a story
like the one about the murdered man
who had his cock cut off and shoved down his throat
for the $100,000 he didn’t have stuffed in his mattress
standing back from the chair talking in the mirror
the comb becoming first a knife as he slashed it down his front
then a cock as he tilted back his head and gagged on it

He had learnt a thing or two on that no man’s island
which gave him some assurance and got him through
and could not be challenged
knowing there was nothing the little man could do
about the commendatori their snouts in the trough
looking after their kids their kind why wouldn’t they
same in the old country same everywhere

He knew how to talk to people or not
how to touch men and get them to comply with his direction
and for them to be comfortable with this

He came from an island once in Austria now in Croatia
and settled in a suburb not too rich not too poor
and built up the business and built himself
a triple-fronted double-brick veneer and called it Fortuna

**

Mark Prendergast is a writer living in Preston. His poems and reviews have been published in various journals including foam:e, Rochford Street Review, PN Review and Tears in the Fence.

P76 issue 9: Poetries of place/ displacement/ diaspora/ odyssey: On-line Edition. Table of Contents