Poetry: Kevin Higgins

We Lie
after Holly McNish

My one remaining friend,
now I’ve plugged out my Mum,
is in my pretend life
because he’s willing to not notice
what I metaphorically call
things. Like the fact that I carry about with me,
smiling up out of my man-bag,
a two day dead pike
that looks like it died
of a personality disorder;
had its oily head beaten in by someone
who could take no more
of it blathering on
in a fake south London accent
about how it was finking of voting
Lib Dem, and that it heard
the lyrics on Adele’s post-divorce album
are surprisingly upbeat.

My friend is still my friend
‘cos unlike all the ex-people
I had to drop concrete blocks on
he’s able to let on
my succession of pet dead pikes
don’t smell because his nose
has grown so used to
dead pike at this stage
he’d miss it if it wasn’t
there to block out
the even smellier
dead things that live
at the bottom of my man-bag,
the leather existence of which
you must be prepared to deny
even when questioned by psychiatrists,
if you want to be my friend.