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Comp results:
Mr Panutka’s finest hour
Mr. Panutka purses his mouth
and, after some thought,
moves two pins
an infinitesimal distance
somewhere to the south
of a left shoulder-blade
as, on tiptoe, he circles
the general and head on one side
runs his eyes, knowing as a starling’s,
across collar, vents, button-holes,
lapels, appraising the miracle,
this cut of the cloth, this way
he has persuaded it to hang,
mercifully by-passing
that which the general
still thinks of as his waist
and this is Mr. Panutka’s finest hour,
this, he realises now,
is what he was born for –
to measure, cut and fit,
to tack and sew these fragile threads
to-and-fro across his President’s
dress uniform in which,
very soon, though Mr. Panutka
does not yet know this,
General Ramon Garcia Ramirez
will be shot, at ten o’clock exactly
on the morning of June the fifth,
by one of the mothers
whose sons he tortured
and, smiling over his coffee,
fed to the flesh-eaters
in his shimmering lily pool.
Angela Kirby
recommended, National Poetry competition, 2003;
published in collection, Mr. Irresistible, Shoestring Press, 2005
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