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The Longest Queue, poem by Dave Lordan

    This a story I heard from a friend
    who heard it from an Iraqi engineer
    who fled away to Ireland
    from bomb clouds and anthrax
    in the rain and mile long queues for food
    He rings home once a month
    to speak to his dying mother
    and to hear news of his family and neighbours.
    That night he told the story he
    had asked after a friend of his,
    a doctor with two beautiful daughters
    and a young boy.
    His mother had gone silent, darkly silent,
    fifty pence gobbling silent.
    A couple of months ago this doctor
    lost his job and was left to
    live on government rations,
    not a lot to go on by all accounts
    and anyway he owed some money
    to a smuggler for getting
    his mother over the border to Jordan.
    Faced with starvation he improvised
    and sent his two beautiful daughters,
    one eighteen, the other fifteen,
    out to sell their bodies,
    and his ten year old son to shine shoes and beg.
    Financially it worked out,
    they even made enough to set some money aside.
    But the man was broken hearted,
    not to speak of how his children must have felt.
    So the man decides to cook a chicken for his family.
    He goes to queue in the marketplace.
    It’s a short queue since chickens
    cost six weeks average wages.
    Then the slightly longer line for vegetables
    and the four hours waiting for bread.
    Maybe he thinks to himself
    that the only thing longer than this bread queue
    is the waiting list at the coffin-makers.
    Next day is some kind of religious feast
    so he tells his kids to be at the dinner table at seven.
    He’s got a surprise for them.
    While preparing the chicken
    he searches through his leftover medicines
    for a suitable poison
    to inject into the breast and leg meat.
    The daughters and the son arrive in time
    and they sit around the table chatting,
    faking good humour for the good of their father,
    like they always do.
    The doctor divides the meat among them,
    a breast and leg for himself,
    a breast for the eldest daughter,
    a leg for the younger,
    a leg and two wings for the son.
    He gestures to his son to share out the vegetables.
    They say their prayers quickly, mouths watering.
    Since none of them has eaten meat for
    months and months they take
    their time, chewing each mouthful
    with the relish reserved for a luxury,
    rolling it round with their tongue,
    squeezing the taste out with their teeth.
    The boy asks for more and gets it.
    They do not talk while they are eating.
    They concentrate on the taste and the smell.
    The doctor is a subtle and a skilful cook,
    his children notice nothing unusual,
    he gives nothing away with sighs or tears.
    They do not even notice themselves dying.
    In a few minutes they are all dead.
    They have joined the longest queue of all.
    I hope this isn’t a true story
    but I’d say it probably is.


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