At St. Malachy’s Church

I came to light a candle for a friend

but Jesus had a really bad mustache

and those were only pinpricks in his palms

so I passed on.

I came to light a candle for a friend

but Joseph’s hands were manicured

and soft as Fairy Liquid hands

I could not light one there so I passed on.

In the corner was a fellow with a cowled robe

and a tonsure like a saucer — he palmed

a young and curly blonde Adonis — so I

passed on then to Benoît-Joseph Labre,

a tattered man whose wide eyes blazed,

he looked quite mad, had beggar’s hands,

I liked him. I lit two dozen candles, didn’t pay,

and nicked this book on him before I left.

I did all this in honor of my matchless absent friend,

whose honest calloused workman’s hands

maintained the half of Belfast,

and nothing’s been the same since he passed on.