Two Scientists

I should be in work

instead, I sit in a Dublin café

tightly clutching a cup of tea

as if it might escape

 

to avoid contact with other people I stare

at a television hanging on the wall

“Warning – The Following Footage Contains Gruesome Scenes”

precedes relentless awfulness

war, tyrannical dictators, child molestation, rape, murder

then, to lighten things, the cult of celebrity

a waterfall of bile, the dregs of us

roaring forth into our grateful mouths and

 

I cannot look and notice

a boy and his father, hunched over a small table

between them, a tall glass of coke

a scoop of ice-cream is slowly lowered

two scientists, giddy with expectancy

the foam rises slowly upward

his young eyes have already half eaten it

the foam tries to escape but it is met

by the boy’s giggling tongue and

it is life, it is everything, and it wins

it wins

it wins

it wins