it is easy to obsess over small objects paperclips spoons and q-tips when self grooming generates silence — virginal
trumps untamable — the renunciations of dullness do not lead to desire with upturned hands, razors, at rest
it is easiest to use sadness as a utensil to push people away spiders construct traps from their abdomen then devour
daily to recoup, silk protein recycled gouaches in lowlight, design or debris we all think we might be terrible
but we only reveal this before asking someone to love us a kind of undressing — it is easy
to section and peel a tangelo even false origin stories expose shame — a cerebral echo chamber
when self sculpture empties mark the focal point as hinge hemmed, at the center, coral
since microwave romances have deceptive expiration dates
i brush my teeth at his place now, but that’s not the point scuba means self contained underwater breathing apparatus he kisses me urgently mid chew ginger garlic fish sauce
in public, no pressure, no hesitation, and this is mos def not the point chemistry is important since we cannot manufacture it out of raw necessity Drake’s first line in Finesse is I want my babies to have your eyes
despite incoming or ongoing variables what is the function of “x” why tell a stranger or a lover your problems when you can use it as a chance to punish those around you — make haste and hail to the queen of non-sequiturs
on my critical thinking roster i can’t pronounce the name “FNU” in countries where newborns are left post war now privileged strangers greet them as “first name unknown” a haunting aqualung
nerve damage after dead relationships may result in tooth decay when you are tasting: the first taste acclimates the palate, the second establishes a foundation, and the third taste is to make a decision
since you’re an expert of creating a crisis out of empty nostalgia can i get a metaphorical forklift for all my emotional baggage? the accumulation of plaque cannot be resolved by few weeks of flossing
what is lost can be found in the biological studies of an oyster or was it an orchid or was it of a clitoris — quick what’s a common fishing blunder? let me noodle around with this for a while before i get back to you
the anatomy of beaches: 3 on west coast, 14 on east coast your absence has reached comical heights Charlie Chaplin himself would rise from the dead to have a laugh at us
is this my grave or my mother’s womb?
it upsets me when my mother thinks my poetry is silly. the word “silly” comes from the old english word “selig” meaning happy, healthy, and prosperous.
in german, “selig” means to be blessed: but consecrated and made holy with what? when a title, silly, precedes the name of a person, their identity, vigor, and
passion are reduced to the relevancy of a car alarm. i failed to master french and vietnamese. my mother has a myriad of domesticated excuses to not speak
the english language. it complicates the process of checking and rechecking the meaning of words in results to the drowning of palettes in sand
dunes of iodine soaked palm fronds. a car alarm without a car is not just an alarm. as mother calls poetry silly, she shucks and drains the basket of mussels and oysters
in the sink, shucking and draining with such a lonely authority, the way a businesswoman shucks off her nightgown, the way a flaccid regime shucks off
its totalitarian characteristics. my mother is above logic, she cannot be subpoenaed, even under oath in court she will not admit to stating that my poetry is trivial. in the kitchen,
i read her a line from Marcel Proust, happiness is beneficial for the body, but it is grief that develops the powers of the mind but she isn’t listening.
lessons in taxidermy
my armpits have been secreting scaled sadness
for months grommeting new ways to chew
linea alba fat tongue teeth grinder agenda
sleep as prize for insomniacs somnambulists
consolation mantra safe alignments cold mala
beads rotates between index and middle silence
betrays never thought i’d feel this kind of hesitation
my hands on another girl its more than taxing
the way you take control ocean jasper too often
longing arcs expose vagueness seek excitement
in the mundane fingers on pulse fingering
when did withholding become attractive
knuckles hungry for pelvic bone quick terse
confession sharper than indigenous peppermint
are tactile feedbacks are satisfying imps
important lines lost between the years skin folds
if emptiness is a pretense, a breached duality, an unearthing
without dirt rebound is proof of grief interrupted here
taxonomy of queen bees a dozen to please you
Can a dropped ice cream be a joyful sight? A slight of thought, akin to road kill: a dead badger is still a badger that was once alive.
Can a spark of juvenile pride (the curl tightly looped to touch the forehead of the whipped pile) be saved from extinction
once it lies, semi-freddo on the pavement? Losing shape and form and purpose – a small death or not one at all.
(Published by Banshee)
Notions of Sex
I have conversations in my head with my ex about how I don’t even want sex anymore that I could have it if I wanted it/ that men still look at me/ I see them looking at me it’s not a competition/ I say/ but if it was I would be winning/ I feel my body born anew without touch/ I can’t even imagine being touched/ my skin is ashy with resistance/ my hair is falling out/ I’m hungry all the time but I have no appetite/ I think about the trees I’m planting/ even though I am leaving soon/ will anyone water them?/ I admire the dirt under my fingernails/the rose thorn scratches up my knees even my sweat smells different/ ferrous/ as if I am rusting/ I find old nails in the soil unbent/ I hammer them into the dry stone wall / and tie the pear tree to the wallit/ it needs support though it is too young for fruit/ I leave orange peels on the window sill and / feel embarrassed by my nipples as I drink my coffee/ I think at this point I should talk about masturbation/ but I don’t feel like it/ there is a rotten mattress abandoned on my street/ I look to see if anything is hidden in the springs/ there is nothing/ across the wall is the river/ a shag swims past/ later it will dry its wings on a rock/ the tide comes in and goes out faster than I can look out the window/ I miss the turn/ in the woods I feel the trees around me like bodies/ I have read that there is a chemical peace from trees/ I imagine we are sardines together/ me and the firs/ upright/ refusing to lie down on the needly soft ground/ there is a greenhouse on the path/ the glass is all broken/ the pleasure of smashing windows comes back to me/ on building sites as a child/ one after another/ the softness/ the trajectory followed through/ we hold up a hose to a pile of sand/ pretend it’s a penis and piss holes like in snow/ a man in shorts waves to me from his bike/ compliments my dog/ no one catcalls anymore/ I was followed once/ in a small town/ I was about twelve/ it got dark but I got away/ you don’t forget the feeling of someone watching you round a corner/ is it better not to be watched at all?/ there are new blinds on the windows/ now the locals know whether I’m in or not/ I’m told you’re not a local until you get a set of binoculars/my eyesight has returned/ I forgot my glasses one day and never used them again/ I rub myself with oils/ take tablets to reduce my heat/ my face burns with irritation/ people think I’m angry/ they’re only half wrong/ but I’ve learned to smile in a better way/ let it rise to my eyes/ bare my teeth/ I reel away from hugs/ I don’t want to hold hands/ I sit on the steps in the garden/ sunny stones warm me/ I lie down. (Published by Hotel)
Old Lives
Perhaps if things hadn’t turned out The way they did, and I hadn’t left Eight years before, jumping in beside Daddy in the car, placing the flower My boyfriend had given me on the dashboard Perhaps if the waves had been more violent on The Irish Sea that crossing, if perhaps I had taken that as a sign and turned back Commandeering the wheel Pushing the captain aside Get out Of my way and sailed back to Scotland Taken up a job in an allotment Worked things out with the Greek Then ditched him later for a tall Scottish Fella called something like Reuben or Robin who played in a folk band Perhaps I would have been happier
Perhaps I wouldn’t have gotten that stomach ulcer And Daddy wouldn’t have confused His cancer for a matching ulcer They’d just cut it out in time and We could have gone to the Venice Biennale That year, like we talked about Me laughing at his conservative tastes How he figured craft was of utmost importance Not this conceptual drivel Cast a cold eye On life, On Death Horsemen pass by! He’d chant as we walked along canals Missing the dog at home That would not jump in a river And stove its head in the next summer Perhaps we would all finally learn How to get along at Christmas To sit down and eat in peace without Someone breaking a glass or shouting About the unfairness of it all And I’d go back to Glasgow to my empty flat Get my cat back from the catsitter Open the window and Drink a glass of cheap French brandy To bring in the New Year. (Published by Hotel)
Incredible Things Do Happen
A tiny person at Edith Piaf’s grave turned to my parents and told them I am her sister. Her bones were birdy, twisted and brittle, like those left on the number 171, stripped of flesh, in a small cardboard box. Her body doubled in on itself forehead reaching closer to the concrete of the tomb, her stick the only thing contriving to separate the two. Perhaps it was a lie. Whoever this woman was, she’s in the Repertoire now, joining the Kennedys playing baseball in their garden in Cape Cod, an immigration inspector who flipped my mother’s passport photo off with her long acrylic nails and the young man who presented my aunt with a huge bunch of flowers in Neary’s, apropos of nothing. (Published by Butcher’s Dog)
“Let’s get together soon,” without setting a date is the tactic we always use to keep others on the line without actually giving of our time. You’ve made it clear you don’t have time for me, so why would I tell you my secret when everything would have to change? I’m torn. I’ll be a burden either way. I’m stuck trying to decide which is more humane. Do I inject grief now into your too busy timeframe? Or wait and risk you maybe cursing my name because I didn’t give you the chance to say goodbye? I tried to tell you in my wordy way but forgot you never read what I write, so wouldn’t know I was going away. The words are just too hard to say. So sure, let’s get together soon. Someday.
Bubbles
Swamp bubbles lurched from the mud below belching the stench of repressed memories I hadn’t let go. Forgotten trauma attacked in waves, pain and self-loathing vomited in saving grace.
Wiping my mouth with the back of my fist, I staggered to my feet, this memory I would no longer resist. Screaming my rage across the sky, the swamp fell silent, still full of dark stains left to die.
Umbrella
We didn’t have an umbrella but, laughing, you grabbed my hand. Those Irish blue eyes were dancing as you pulled me along, dodging cars and cold November raindrops.
Inside a turf fire was burning. Hot whiskey in hand, we leaned in to hear over pub noise. And despite the late hour, we yearned to linger.
But we left once we were dry, laughter subdued as confusion took hold. The fire had warmed more than intended. Were we becoming more than friends? The opportunity to find out washed away with the last of the rain. We didn’t have an umbrella.
Too Small
No one hears my screams as I claw, bound and trapped, by barbed wire skin two sizes too small. I bleed and can’t catch my breath. Why did I put it back on at all?
Blind
My heart is surely going blind. I used to know every fleck of gold In your hazel eyes, Even if mine were closed. I can’t see your eyes anymore. I panic when I stumble and bump into the pieces of the old me I no longer recognize; the ones I never put away. The ones that now make me trip and fall.
My heart has gone deaf. I used to hear the sound of your voice Even if you were far away. Like a buoy ringing out on a foggy sea, calling me home. Now I can’t hear you at all. In silence, I wreck upon the rocks and frown.
So I stare at photos, holding them close to my dying eyes, And watch you get blurry and fade.
Christine Murray lives in Dublin with her two children Tadhg and Anna. Her poetry has been widely published, both in print and online, in chapbooks, anthologies, and journals. She founded and edits Poethead; A Poetry Site that is dedicated to platforming work by women poets, their translators, and editors. She is an active member of Fired! Irish Women Poets and the Canon which seeks to celebrate and draw awareness to the rich cultural heritage of Irish women poets through awareness-raising and reading. She currently curates the Fired! archive at RASCAL (Research And Special Collections Available Locally- Queen’s University, Belfast). Christine Murray’s latest poetry collection “Gold Friend” is forthcoming in Autumn 2020 with Turas Press, Dublin.
Old Ink
A glass mountain
to sip from the laments
lost deep in the earth
A ladder to climb
home again
A heap of gold
en years
through which
the light shone in
O see
the open window
rot
hurt
ribbon
of all that had happened
O
rejoice still
We have lived
The above poem is an erasure of Margaret Hunt’s 1884 translation
of “Old Rinkrank” from Household Tales by the Brothers Grimm.
Mint Family
The summer blossoms
with fields of French lavender—
dress in perfumed air.
The time it takes to know one’s ticks Is a short, round the clock to Twenty-four To love them takes only one With blindfold eyes in bedroom Morning, empty coffee cups
Dusty shakes of mindless thoughts Importance comes too late When idle happiness warms Their train seat home
Why does time excuse endless Troupes of productivity Deemed impossible to achieve When achieving it? You find that useless, mindless thoughts Bring only an abundance more.
Where are childhood ticks in Tin-cans and Orange juice cartons Empty by the kitchen sink?
Rooftops and dreamlike Catch-up conversations Take me to bed through the Gapped stone walls Where my body rests on adrenaline buds Minding them for morning.
Landmark’s Difference
Come in off the street Out of the cold Into the dense air Of bustling business; Bright eyed
The same faces knocking From pillar to post Protecting their silent Protests
Yearning for the openness Of country caravans And wood cabin comfort; There’s no solace In the city
Only endless shafts shifting Culture to crude creation Ugly unanimous agreements Pitch only imperfect pictures
Where is the sound Of silent night When tumbling troupes’ traffic In the thick of it all? The wind waits in brambled bushes I fear my journey home
The Night’s Natural Beginning
Fog outside the windows Cloud misty viewpoint darkness
Captured tusks of white grow Dusty, coarse and grey
Fallen as the snowflakes In a city boy’s apartment
Middle end beginnings and The reckonings of shame Collide.
Where is the sun to warm my Neck longing to be golden?
The time of blue arrives with Empty ducts of tears
Cold, pitch-black coffee cups Leave rings on bedside tables
While she makes way back home To wait for sunrise
The Wall
Construction. Each part of you that Cares and loves And Wants to heal and Love And give and give
Mixed with particles Of priceless pain
They will not let you in Not for separation But to keep you set In your place. Defence Without recognition; Consideration. Shutting out, no bars Just solid wall
The barrier yet the safety net also, How can that be?
Stuck Comfort; discomfort Just the wall Wall All-purpose wall Purpose, need At the expense of what?
The expense of life and progression, The expense of leaping into the eternal everlasting
Guided by imaginary intersections, fumbling our heavy DSLRs, we learned the rules for rhythm and repetition, aperture and cropping.
My notebook sketched the tutor’s words in haste. They resurface beyond the lens.
Organise your space. I carve out this new home without maps, using rough translations and neighbourly advice.
Exaggerate the angles. Each experience becomes bigger, more muddled. I focus along sightlines to the extremes until I can make sense of the finer details.
Never cut away the long shadows. If I cannot embrace the long Finnish winter, I can view its sharp oblique light, from skis or over a hot cup of glöggi.*
Leave the house, explore the parts of the world where you don’t belong. Blend in with the locals, find what attracts you to strangers in their silence, in their open faces.
Travel light. My unnecessary luggage and expectations are abandoned.
Arrive early, leave late. Wait for the decisive moment to speak those hesitant first Sanaa.
Don’t put the subject in the centre. Yet even out of shot I am always fully exposed.
*warmed mulled alcohol or fruit juice served in winter
Slow City Unwind
The Hidden Gardens, Pollokshields
Unseeing strangers blur, heads down, rushing off. The rain-mirrored street a reminding nudge.
Signs offer no way out. Brick walls. Cigarettes stubbed. A black bag afternoon caught in the branches of a stunted tree.
I enter through the sandstone gates. Grasses bow below a horizon of hazy tenements. Stones scarred by workers long forgotten hold the warmth of my hand.
Whiplash leaves rise into a painted sky the colour of seagulls’ wings.
Stake a claim, slow down. My voice buries itself among the pine needles after a day of borrowed words.
I soak up through open pores the unruffled sunset and rill song, ease myself away from the current. Rake away the debris of a hectic life.
Carved wood and soaring trees rest the spirit, a sanctuary to keep impulsive winds at bay.
Sap rush. I translate the garden’s poems and expand my roots.
From Scratch
A tangle of tree roots, moss and clay-bound shade, a gift of apple trees and berry bushes. All day sun and space to roam.
I dreamt of this new garden more than the house.
The first year’s fruit exceeded our ability to cope. I simmered pot after pot with a newborn in my arms, every morning let my eldest eat all the raspberries.
Before the ground has defrosted our window is full of little pots, dirt trailing everywhere.
My daughter sprinkles her seeds with haphazard joy while I painstakingly transplant seedlings. Hers will flourish, blessed with whim and wishes while mine struggle to adapt.
We cut back thirty-year-old trees: koivu, kuusi, tammi, pihlaja, punaherukka*: logs for the fire, mulch, sticks for childhood games. Our patch feeds our Finnish life.
The sun traces the arteries of roots across the unmown lawn, awaiting autumn’s gift of leaves to rake and rake and rake again.
A parcel of land: fit for hide and seek, treasure hunts and first steps, cups of tea and doing nothing. Our home.
*birch, spruce, oak, rowan, red currant
Moon of Winds
February / March
A thawing crack in spring’s resolve, frost gathers along our ridges, tight as white-knuckled lichen.
Uprooting gales no longer push through us, still we search for a finger-hold, a bolt hole in the lull of the rain-scrubbed city.
A thin shaving of new moon blown into bent oak branches, taunts us with a Cheshire cat smile, hunger in its whiskers.
You can ease out your breath among old brick, foundations and familiar ground but I struggle to release my bone-serious grip.
Thunder Moon
July / August
The piebald moon darts between our flashes of galloping inspiration and the rumbles of routine.
My comfort is found rewriting and weeding plotlines, the slow trust of my work growing word by word, seeding clouds with potential.
At the first signs of heavy, threatening skies your dark twin pulls you out of alignment slipping a knife-edge between tight shoulder blades.
I sieve fragile strands of sunlight into your open doubts to recharge your reserves.
Counting on the preceding calm, we test the air, anticipating the next adventure or upheaval. A welcomed foreboding.
The line at the beginning Of the old tale comes from the lips Of the beggar king as he waits In the doorway of old myth, His crown beside him is all rusted and worn.
The day breathes a sadness and A wonder that only children of old know. The rhythm of footsteps holds the march Of men who trampled on the wildflowers Of spring but, among the sounds, a bell rings so quietly. She is there; She is there with eyes of love that humility tempers.
Prayers are made with each footstep. Mantras are chanted by the smile that leaves the lips. Surrender is a storm that never comes And the cracks in the sidewalk are the tunes For the ballads that keep getting sung in glens Where the desolate houses still breathe.
Off and away the farmer is walking His dog to oblivion As the rosary of existence Is said by the hands of the last fires.
What will the tale be when the old man Of the mountains passes silently into the mist? Who will hold the soft hands of the ancient knowledge When the alarm of emptiness rings above the city’s sorrow?
Tragic days without rain I want to tell you the new tale but my heart Does not know the way to the pass where innocence resides. Tell me how to whisper to the king so I might Show him where to drink from the well that renews.
Show me how to meet The soft doe of the woods so that I might Run with the warrior and stand with the woman Who rules the city where the crystal guards the threshold.
Tell me how to live with the ancient son whose tribe Knew how to preserve the gentle star at the end of the world For only now do I know what the beggar king tells with his eyes.
The House of Eden
I wish to go home, She said. I wish to light my fire in the hearth and Remember.
You marched me out long ago, And, though two thousand years have passed, I have not forgotten the road. I am finding my way back.
I know my home was abandoned long ago, But I will know it by the wild roses And the shed with the rusted bridles. I will never forget the smell of my life.
I leave a trail, a scent Wherever I go, And the animals know it too. They have watched over my home. My home in Eden.
They have called me back to light that fire, one last time, Because they too know it will be the last.
I return. I return by the road unpaved Created by hands of starving men. I return in the air you breathe, One last time.
The Measure of a Dream
She’s saying her last words as the rain comes down, As the ghosts weep in the corner, the dog has sinned And the cat has taken to purring. The calm of a day goes unnoticed as the winds Pass to a cold too early for the leaves. As the child waits, the oak bows and the yew reveals its age
A forest begins to speak. A river sings its song. A lake gives away its secrets.
Dawn waits in the arms of the moon and the great land that flooded reveals its bridges in the titles of the great bards Who will tell this tale of the passing of giants? Who will tell the myth to the child that believes in the flocks language?
The fair call. The justice of a feather. The last beat of a truthful heart. These are the dreams surmounted on a scale without a goddess.
Tethered worlds in boats that cannot be seen Remain to be the will of a people. The harbor is full of ghosts wishing to speak the true history but the wanderers have all gone away. And the old sage has tears in his eyes His hands are cracked with the sandpaper of existence While the prowl of a cat reveals how language’s sister Has to cloak herself.
The time is not ready for the light to emerge from the stone where the five rivers dwell. The land quiets itself as the darkness descends And the flame of the woman, in her sad eyes, Is an aisling without a king.
The Fabric of Stillness
They say a golden lady will appear She will walk into crowds and smile at everyone, While children will sing from the bridges, The boys all hidden away will appear with swords and arrows, Ready to cut the ropes for the boats ready to leave the great shores.
A voice is heard in the rhythm of the murmuring And the river is singing songs for the elder to return home. There is a breeze in the air and the words On the lips of existence are too slow for the ears.
Will this time be made by the rhythm of a song? Will the girl who knows the way of the white stag find a way to open the forest The door has been pushed open and the light is streaming in And there are those beckoning for a song kept
Awake from the dream. Awake from the answer. Eat the question. Love the myth.
For the story of an island unnamed is A province unknown and a return of a song From a woman’s voice just awakened.
Truth’s Passage
The grasses have quieted and the cat’s prowl has lost its dance. The foreign accent has all but disappeared and the fade Of colonization’s stroke has placed its last arrow Before the altar of the shining blue-eyed men Eyes looking down for centuries look deep within And humility’s face is beside the widow with her new found tears.
How does sweetness come to these shores? When the ancient dog does not wait for its call. The forests fall is set upon soils of old kings and the chalice Of the queen has been cracked for the lips of princes.
Sorrow leaves the heavens and the poets house Remains unvisited while the crow waits, Waits …
Mountains of lapis straighten stillness, And the broken currach sings the tides that will not return. Beyond the nest of the magpie’s treasure, A silver dove lies from an island uninhabited.
Within a mouth of far distant lands, A branch sings what was lost, And a man cries for the mother he betrayed.
So the clock ticks and the table is left undone, But the candle remains and the lullaby of the future, Whispers softly to the newborn truth.
Within the Heron’s Arms
The river longs for the song of the innocent And the purpose of a tide waits in days unfound. The sun’s sorrow opens the heart’s strings, As the boy wanders too far among the ashes of old empires.
Dirty signs hide the language of nobility, And fearful eyes look down to a pavement gray How will the grief burst the banks When the trees are cut? When the windows are broken? When the door creaks?
What is the clasp that opens the necklace of the captured swans, When the island of loneliness has disappeared, When footsteps without imprints walk amongst us, And the gulls cry to a séance without ritual?
Clouds move the heaven’s story and once again A king leaves these realms in a ceremony of the dark. The flowers bloom in the pause before dawn As the trapped door of existence opens wide. Will the sweetness of truth open the mouth of the wanderers? Will enough be the gate that sings?
It’s the days of great sunlight that reveal the heart’s road to peace. The swallow flies from the continent to the bare cliffs of ancient song. While the last fisherman stands alone calling the sea’s son home.
It is 3.15 p.m, it is Thursday, I am examining two rosemary sprigs
their blue-green, their silver underlight.
She is stripping the small base leaves from a third, tapping its heel, putting it in a glass of crystal-clear-water for planting out with the roses in October.
I can taste lamb-stew with rowanberries, counting the trees–
alternating Crab-apple Rowanberry Crab -apple Rowanberry that syncopated another’s drive—
Memory insists that I stand on a bank of the River Tolka, upstream from Socrates and his garden of roses, those colours we tasted–
For here is the place that we committed him to memory
that black water– Glas Naíon, the stream of the infants,
All I have in this breath is This brain in this tin shell In this endless second My grip choking the wheel –
This brain in this tin shell Rattles and stutters and jerks My grip choking the wheel So letting go is the only thing
That rattles and stutters and jerks Will let past the steering wheel. So letting go is the only thing Left now I’ve learned to fly:
Past the steering wheel My wringing out of skill has Left now I’ve learned to fly Like a cloth uncurling Like a fishing line unspooling – This tin shell flies, and flies, and flies.
bones
at eight i saw it.
the smell of earth thick and foreboding in the air; unearthed by accident, its sickly white a shock against the dark.
i teetered on my toes and held its hands; powdery, dust-dry, like old cheese, its fingers were brittle. its grip was strong.
and i welcomed it, when the vertebrae floated in my glass of milk, when the ribs curved up between the bars of the xylophone:
and i played house with the gaping skull.
Way-Tamer
I earned that name. Through eons of the giant stirring beneath the broiling earth, Through his waking, and the first breaking of the land into its parts, Through the sea’s first fury when it was split in two, I still wandered.
I stood alone on the first beach, on the first rock battered into dust, and watched the formless churning at the end of every world, and I still wandered.
I saw the first hanged man jerk and splutter upon his rope, and saw that the one who watched like a hungry dog would die on the gallows too, and I still wandered.
Even when I warm my feet in front of my own fire and the quickest of the dances pushes the gales away, the road-song beats within my mind like the cawing of a crow.
For when I first began to seek the familiar and the strange, all those things I thought I sought but ended just the same as each useless, petty, little thing I thought I’d left behind,
I found the tree – that gnarled old beast – from which I had yet to swing and as I stared at the looming branch where I’d soon taste nine days’ death, I pushed a gnarled old hand against the bark and spat upon its roots. For, I was not dead yet.
question
do i glimpse a brute in you, when we sleep flesh to flesh, when your moist breath clings to my face as it rasps past teeth and tongue,
or, in your forehead softened, and your lips come slowly loose, do you release each thought and word that hides each of your hurts?
do i catch you unfiltered and raw as morning breath? within our sleeping, flesh to flesh is there room left to hide?
is there room to scour ourselves as we scour dirt from our teeth? or can you see the brute in me and its every snarling hurt?
My Boyfriend’s Beard
I asked him, once, as between my fingers each riotous strand sprang up, ‘What would happen if you straightened it?’ And laughing, he said it would go on fire.
I hope he never does. For when the world dizzies me with its anarchy, and I burn myself fumbling for order, his beard between my fingers wild and weird as any of my spinning thoughts makes a straightener seem a straitjacket and turns the whirling of the world into a waltz.
Kathryn Keane writes poetry and short fiction. Her work can also be found in Culture Matters, Silver Apples Magazine and Bitterzoet Magazine, among others. She has previously been a guest reader and performer at Mary Immaculate College’s Fem Fest, Stanzas: An Evening of Words, Thoor Ballylee’s Tower Poetry Slam, the Intervarsity Poetry Slam and On the Nail.
Chris Murray 