Everything must be on the table. 

Your ninety seven year old granny

is no longer cost effective, would 

benefit greatly from being brought face to face 

with a compassionate baseball bat. 

The figures speak for themselves and will 

be worse by morning. The paraplegic 

in his insanely expensive wheelchair 

will have to crawl as God intended. 

Here are the figures that won’t stop

speaking for themselves, this is the table 

everything must be on. Yesterday my name was

Temporary Fiscal Adjustment. 

Tonight, the insect in the radio calls me

The Inevitable. When the economist 

puts his hand up, take care not to cough. 

Everything’s on the table and 

the table’s tiny. I’d send you a pillow 

to hold hard over the child’s face

’til the kicking stops, but at current rates

there’ll be no pillow. I am the unthinkable 

but you will think me. Pack her mouth 

with tea towels, hold down firmly 

your old mildewed raincoat, 

’til there’s no more breath. 

Tomorrow I’ll be known as

Four Year Consolidation Package. 

Lock the cat in the oven and bake 

at two hundred degrees centigrade. 

Tie your last plastic bag over 

your own head. The figures speak for themselves

and there is no table. 

KEVIN HIGGINS