Prevaricator

I’ve been told to be more specific use more story everyone wants a story—

the only thing that holds people together, yet any hero can refuse the quest.

Captain, if the destination is Cape of Never Stop two clicks before Horn of Constant Toil

after Just Keep on Keeping on Bay the talisman started slurring clearly, but only to me,

it’s neon plankton, rising ash, flying swordfish. The stars lie which make me lie

to my superiors so what’s steerage the point we can go anywhere you command.

I couldn’t report what I saw, without embellishing. That monster white alligator tooth flash

while chugging across Lake Okeechobee small and yellow fangs. Bet that gator smoked a

pack of Camel Lights for thirty years Numbers never matter, Captain. Came out this way.

There’s no conversion therapy for lying. I looked, found, tried, failed, lied again.

Recalled Dylan Thomas who said lying was more fun than telling the truth, or was

that Brendan Behan. Laze with details is a gateway drug. At some point the grammar

rebelled. Deceit became de-seat. Predecessor smooched successor. Inefficiency is corruption.

When what we feel is all that matters lying is the only possibility.

Describe the pain. Two out of ten to me. Captain is seven to you. The wind chill factor

runs right through us. Is that beaver? Aren’t they endangered? Opinion trumps truth.

Let’s kill around us. What’s another species? I winked, touched my nose, blamed.

And the log reported zero catharsis.

DM O'Connor has an MFA from UCD & the University of New Mexico. He is a contributing reviewer for Rhino Poetry and fiction editor at Bending Genres. His work has appeared in Splonk, A New Ulster, Dodging the Rain, Cormorant, Crannog, Opossum, The New Quarterly, The Guardian, the Irish Independent among others.