“Die Schwangere” by Nuala Ní Chonchúir

‘Die Schwangere’

~ Pregnant in Karlsruhe ~

The other poets drink damson schnapps
from thistle-head glasses,

My baby flicker-kicks
with all five ounces of her weight,
with all four inches of her length.

I dream her hand
pipping from the egg of my belly
like a wing through shell,
I hold her embryonic fingers,
thrilling at her light touch.

Delighting in my blooming belly,
I feel my nestled passenger,
she flicks and settles, settles and kicks;
her cells gather, graceful as an origami swan
in perfect folds and re-folds.

In perfect folds and re-folds
her cells gather, graceful as an origami swan
she flicks and settles, settles and kicks;
I feel my nestled passenger
delighting in my blooming belly.

Thrilling at her light touch
I hold her embryonic fingers,
like a wing through shell,
pipping from the egg of my belly,
I dream her hand.

With all four inches of her length.
with all five ounces of her weight,
my baby flicker-kicks.

From thistle-head glasses
the other poets drink damson schnapps..

Die Schwangere

~ pregnant in Karlsruhe ~ is © Nuala Ní Chonchúir.  The Juno Charm , 2011.

.

---

About the Juno Charm

“In the tapestry that is The Juno Charm, award-winning writer Nuala Ní Chonchúir explores the worlds of two marriages – one waning, one waxing – and the pain of pregnancy loss and fertility struggles. This is an intimate book where the reader is taken by the emotional resonance of the poems, as much as by the exploration of the use of amulets and charms. The poems travels comfortably from County Galway – as in the wry Frida Kahlo Visits Ballinasloe – to Manhattan’s skyscrapers; and from the Seine in Paris to Dublin’s Liberty Hall. Ní Chonchúir once again employs her signature sensual frankness in poems of love and the body (‘I am the pomegranate / and you, the peacock // My seedy, red-pulped core / glistens with juice, / awaits your entrance’). Sometimes irreverent, always vivid, this is poetry ripe with imaginative possibility and wit. ” From Salmon Poetry

Thanks to Nuala Ní Chonchúir for supporting Poethead with her poems and translations.

• Her poems appear here and here on the blog.
•  I also included Nuala Ni Chonchúir in a celebration of Irish Women’s writing on Bloomsday 2012.
• WomenRuleWriter

---