The Only Place to Go in Tipperary

Contributor: Donal Mahoney

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Father Kelly has always claimed
the only place to go in Tipperary
once you're dead is Eagan's Mortuary.
Father Kelly says Eagan lays a client out
as if a body were a mackerel from the sea
glistening in the bottom of a boat
once the mad thrashing is over.
Father Kelly has always claimed
a dead mackerel deserves a nap
before the flames of hell take over.

The late Tommy Dugan arrived at Eagan's
a day or so after he'd been shot
and Eagan laid him out perfectly
with both eyes open and a plastic
booger peeking from his nose,
a cosmetic touch Tommy had requested
when he came to Eagan's the week before,
chomping on an unlit panatela.
Tommy came that day to make
final arrangements, as they say.

That same day Tommy asked if he could be
waked in Eagan's finest casket upside down,
his pants pulled down around his knees
and a sign across his arse saying "Kiss this!"
as a final salute to his mother-in-law.
But the law in Tipperary specifies
no sign of any kind in any casket so
Tommy settled for the plastic booger in his nose.
He knew his mother-in-law would curse it
at the family viewing prior to the wake.

At Eagan's you can make arrangements
years before you die and Eagan guarantees
he'll lay you out the way you specify
provided everything's within the law, of course.
But Tommy Dugan's widow swears
Eagan must have been possessed to put
a plastic booger in a dead man's nose.
Rosie Dugan can't believe her sober Tommy
would ever ask for anything like that.
But after Mass on Sunday friends remind her

Father Kelly has always claimed
the only place to go in Tipperary
once you're dead is Eagan's Mortuary.
Father Kelly says Eagan lays a client out
as if a body were a mackerel from the sea
glistening in the bottom of a boat
once the mad thrashing is over.
Father Kelly has always claimed
a dead mackerel deserves a nap
before the flames of hell take over.


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Donal Mahoney, a native of Chicago, lives in St. Louis, Missouri. His poetry and fiction have appeared in print and online publications in the United States, Europe, Asia and Africa.