paul durcan
___________________

The death by heroin of Sid Vicious

There -- but for the clutch of luck -- go I.

At daybreak -- in the arctic fog of a February
daybreak --
Shoulderlength helmets in the watchtowers of the
concentration camp
Caught me out in the intersecing arcs of the
swirling searchlights:

There were at least a zillion of us caught out there
-- Like ladybirds under a boulder --
But under the microscope each of us was unique.

Unique and we broke for cover, crazily breasting
The barbed wire and some of us made it
To the forest edge, but many of us did not

Make it, although their unborn children did --
Such as you whom the camp commandant branded
Sid Vicious of the Sex Pistols. Jesus, break his fall:

There -- but for the clutch of luck -- go we all.

February 1979

The lead singer of the Sex Pistols died February 3, 1979.