The Only Time Our Adult Hands Touched I was 29, he was 72 We were building up a stone wall That a Hereford bullock knocked When trying to leap over Our hands went for the same stone Then both pulled back I was embarrassed That’s how he raised me He said after 7 hours ‘Ah … Read more
Fragments of a Litany Gaza, 2023-24 Grieve with the butchered gods of love for Layan al-Baz, the young, the strong, her soft arms cut by shrapnel, her wounded leg a stump. May the world record unquietly the wordless eyes of Abdul, of Kenza, and Karam – who buried their mothers in a barren yard. And … Read more
Inside the castle’s gift shop stood White, reading the biography of the artist whose work was on exhibit. She was not a local. White had expected as much. It was often the case. Arts councils promote the work of foreign writers and artists, liminal beings that they are. Yes, I mean, why else would they … Read more
Psalm The light and the wind on the water these wild winter days are breath of it The cardinal sun below cumulus flaring up skybeams a pulse Gathers the gloom but high in the east celestial moon unhides behind heart-racing clouds All in the arms of physics and this is heaven we are blessed to … Read more
A Poem for Refaat Alareer In the poem your butchers fear to breathe, the murdered nurseries are clean, the brimming table-top restored – your every room aflush with idleness again, a bowl of flying spices near to hand, the oven-bread uplifted through the haze: a feast the windy air will sing from the open-hearted balcony … Read more
No Record of Wrongs Love does keep a record of some things— your solitary walks in Coln Saint Aldwyn’s, a precise curl of Virginia Creeper tendrils, vermillion in autumn, the way you carefully smelled horses’ necks beneath the mane back home, velveteen crushes of cornhusks lashed to lampposts Love notes you’ve yet to find a … Read more
Bliain an Áir ‘The Year of Slaughter’, 1740-41 Around the earth, a warring, wooden sea of brigs was bristling, a-flame; volcanic ash descending on the vacillating map. The weathered world began to shift – a tiny alteration sowing ice across the land. The shining-bellied geese no longer wintered by the lough. The turf-blue river waters … Read more
The bed had been positioned deliberately near the window so the artist had a view of the sky. The sky embodied eternity. Our creations change with every era, each century brings a new art, but the sky, on a cloudless blue day or in the grey rain, appears as it did to our most remote … Read more
Waking Up He had thousands of kodachromes when he died. Nowadays they’d be snaps stored on the cloud, given back tritely as memories by some iphone. Anyway, they went in the bin, regardless of what they meant to him. I have chameleon words, collections of notes, playing the same role: tie it down — capture … Read more
How I Remember Her I glared that first night as she vaunted perks And spoke in winding roads; uncouth she pried About my grade and cut. Around her stride, I feel as though I’m drunk. I miss her quirks. The nights we stargaze drag on. I should work. I see her down the bar, then … Read more