AN EASTER PRAYER

There, there
The fool that you are, Robert
Is that druff on your shoulder?
It is not, you fiend
Oh, Meg, tarry a while
I will not, I cannot
Please, I’ll make an honest woman of you
The cheek of it, you don’t have it in you
My kisses say I do
Get your lips off me, man
If you love God you’d want to taste a bit of heaven
That’s sacrilege and blasphemy
It is not, it’s as pure as snow to love a woman
You big bastard with your clever words
Come on then, undress a little and show me your thigh
Only the right one
And the space in between
Aw, Robert, you’ll ruin me
Meg, we’re all ruined in the eyes of God
Amen to that
Amen, Meg . . . amen
picture by Jonny Voss
About Alan McCormick Writing
Alan McCormick lives with his family in Wicklow. He’s a Trustee and former writer in residence for InterAct Stroke Support, a charity employing actors to read fiction and poetry to stroke patients.
His writing has won prizes and been widely performed and published, including recently in The Stinging Fly, Banshee, The Lonely Crowd, Southword, Sonder and Exacting Clam magazines, and previously in Salt’s Best British Short Stories, A Wild and Precious Life – A Recovery Anthology, Modern Nature Anthology – Responses to Derek Jarman’s Modern Nature, The Poetry Bus, The Sunday Express Magazine, The Bridport and Fish Prize Anthologies, Popshot, Litro and Confingo; and online at Epoque Press, Words for the Wild, 3:AM Magazine, Culture Matters, Dead Drunk Dublin, Mono, Fictive Dream, The Quietus and Found Polaroids.
His story ‘Firestarter’ came second in the 2022 Francis MacManus RTE Short Story Competition and ‘Boys on Film’ came second in The 2023 Plaza Prizes Sudden Fiction competition.
DOGSBODIES and SCUMSTERS , his collection of short stories with flash shorts inspired by Jonny Voss’s pictures, was published by Roast Books and long-listed for the Edge Hill Prize.
Alan and Jonny also collaborate on illustrated shorts known as Scumsters – see more at Deaddrunkdublin.com and Scumsters.blogspot