Immanuel Mifsud

I, Ġ użeppi Marija Mifsud from Valletta, son of Pawla and Salvu, proletarian and committed Socialist although I have never read the red books (because those are blacklisted by our Mother the Apostolic Roman Catholic Church and because I don’t have a head for difficult, evil books, though I do know how to read a little), soldier of the Second World War assigned to the anti-aircraft cannon to defend my homeland from the air assaults of the fascist Italian bastards and the Nazi pigs, risking my life for my homeland, for the family entrusted to my care by the grace of God, with tattoos on my arm because I’m a proletarian soldier – a corporal at first, then a sergeant in the King’s Own Malta Regiment and the Royal Malta Artillery in Bigi and Tignè – my skin blistered by white-hot steel, toiling as I had always done since childhood after my mother was widowed for the second time, running about the streets wearing only one shoe in order to make the pair last longer, taking on whatever jobs I could find to support my mother and my younger siblings and

becoming a man as men are supposed to be, a hymn to barefooted humanity and an inspiration for the Workers’ Movement, living and dying and taking aim at the enemy flying overhead in aeroplanes intent on blowing my head off, becoming, existing, being.

At the age of eighty-seven, Lord, you summoned me unto you.
Ġ użeppi Marija Mifsud, also known as il-Kikkra , The Cup.
Now, son let’s see if you can guess this one: from her lips a kiss you stole, with your finger in her hole.