Dire Straits
You think wheelchairs race the corridor at night,
see letters on the mountain, ask me what they spell,
there are no letters, there are no mountains,
this hospital room looks out to the sea.
Morphine makes your mind a public place,
thoughts spill without censure, your voice
has the cadence of country lanes again, before
city streets, the lilt that struck a chord
when you first asked for a dance at the disco.
Students electric with eighties acrylic, pogo,
head-bang to ACDC. The music slows,
sweeps the dancefloor, the parquet exposed.
White grandad shirt and Wranglers, you swag by –
Your latest trick – I’m hooked by the saxophone riff,
thinking maybe I know the script when you lean in,
but instead throw me with your opener
‘Have you ever milked a cow?’
Bruschetta
Peaches spill a sunset on our tongues,
as Rosé tints evening in the Luberon,
mosquitoes feast pale skin. The children,
gather squat tomatoes from ‘La Violette’s’
tiered garden, twist to drop glossy lemons
from the tree by the hammock, pluck oodles
of basil. Little fists a pesto of gifts
offered to the kitchen by small green fingers.
To be chopped, torn, and tossed with salt,
olive oil from village groves, a balance
of sweet acidity. Spooned with baguette
spared from lunch. Night-altered, the purple
forest, cicadas chorus, fool us, we think
we can come again next year, unchanged.
Tenant
Through a violet and gold heather bowl,
the mountain carries a woman, the woman
carries her home. The circumference of all
she owns is tied with a white apron bow,
slipped between loose stitched-hide brogues,
shrouded Madonna-tight with a black shawl.
Her story left to unfold in the Wicklow
sweep, the scattered dust of Coolattin,
it whispers through Shillelagh’s great oaks.
Two apple trees, one damson, a hollow
for ducks, a cabin, one acre to sow.
The door knock at dawn for the £2 owed.
Notice to Quit, Coolattin 1868,
Estate of the Earl of Fitzwilliam
Wicklow, Ireland
Find out more about Sinéad on our Contributors’ Page.
(Photo: Concertina Journal)
- Three Poems by Sinéad Griffin - November 10, 2022