Mark O’Flynn
Lonely Hearts on Shell Corner
Lonely guy wants to meet like-minded girl,
non-smoker, non-drinker, marine biologist
searching for a partner to share his happiness…
He forgot to mention Satanist.
What was it about that sad motel on Shell Corner
leaning towards the wounded side of dusk that made
him want to draw them to his bosom? Once is bad
enough, but to return, is that being a sucker for punishment,
or lack of imagination?
Sixteen years he paid
the Queen for that first one. Out early
for good behaviour with a new wife into the bargain,
what, perhaps, they call animal magnetism.
So why return like a dog to its own boneyard?
Six women responded to the lonely guy’s
request for love. One he chose. The same modus operandi
on the creepy edge of town, the same yellow
handkerchief stuffed down her throat, as before,
like an atrophied lung.
Alive, he insisted, when he left the room.
Said that once, when he stepped through the gate
of Rushworth cemetery, the temperature
of the air rose ten degrees or more. The future,
maybe, beckoning.