Body as a Home for This Darkness
The white bowl, canteen style, holds a roast beef dinner. Each smooth dollop settles neatly on the teaspoon. Beside it, orange juice in a teacup, fortified with supplements and a thickening agent. A bib and some tissues. The wheeze of a mattress punctures the silence. You sit propped, a pillow each side of your bent frame. The blue woven blanket is tangled around your feet. I ease each leg free, spread the cover out, tuck it under the safety rail. Over the bed a wedding photograph; you in an ill-fitting suit, your wife in a white dress, taller. She's holding your hand. Neither of you smile. Your hair is a dull grey now, nails bitty and yellow. On the locker your grandchildren beam out with familiar brown eyes. Placing just a drop on the spoon, I move it to your mouth, touch the rim gently against cracked lips, and tilt. I watch your neck contract, wait for the wet gurgling, will each morsel down the right way. Once, you made raspberry jelly when my throat hurt. I'll ask if I can bring you some. Later, when the nurse explains she's applying antibiotic drops because your eyelids won't open and your eyes are crusted and sore, I say I understand. It's hard to know when you are awake or asleep. Your chest rising and falling is all we know. Dusk edges across the car park, the way out distant and fading. I close the curtains, read aloud some crossword clues. It's quiet, then dark.
Ironed grey overalls.
Petrol scent on a face cloth.
Dad, dinner's ready.
**
Lemon Drops in the Pocket of My Father's Overcoat
The rusted nail is angled low, your handy work weakened
by a rampant damp that settled on the tweed overcoat
you wore to Sunday mass and the ever more frequent funeral
processions of men who bluffed and laughed, drinking
whiskey straight from tulip glasses, spare pennies clumped
in the centre of a table as bets to outdo the hand they'd been dealt.
I once rifled the pockets — a thief of 9 years old — hungry
for sweets we couldn't afford. I found a tan pouch,
inside a set of rosary beads, each glassy stone
an illusion of lemon drops tethered by thread to a crucifix.
The inlets are frayed, three buttons missing, how
you fastened each against an easterly rage that swooped
on the steps of a church, hurtled across freshly dug
soil, collar upturned against the bruising of that day
and the onset of a coldness we weathered together.
I can't remember when you last wore a coat,
as I lift your head from pillow to window, point
your gaze to the wind, as if to capture
something imagined, then to your mouth, on the tip
of a spoon, a hint of lukewarm spirit.
**
Confetti
Gifted a bouquet of lavender bound
in green twine, I am navigating
the streets of a place I am lost in,
offering the moody cathedral's
gun metal steeple our tone
behind this city's summer skyline.
A prayer in the guise of a wreath:
Violet whorls sprinkled to the heavens
holding you in permanent cloud,
fragrance delicate as my belief,
your picture wrapped
in cling-film inside my handbag,
a faint glimpse of you as I reach
for my phone to capture
the spire piercing the belly of dusk.
And here, under a gang of crows
eyeing my pointless gift,
fluttering their black capes over
this purple moment, I inhale
your wild will, a chaotic residue
landing as confetti on my hair.
**
Leaving
December 3rd, 2020
Today, I buried my father, as well as find myself lost on the M50, oblivious to direction, heading the wrong way — northbound, with the procession of busy cars packed with people, although a few cars had just one person. But, I want to believe every car was full and found its way home because I am sad to think of the driver, alone in the next lane for several peripheral moments, leaving a graveyard, the coffin carved with the figures of the twelve apostles, lowered, the colossal depth, the green felt mat that couldn't mask the scent of fresh digging and the undertaker placing a makeshift cover of two bouquets of lilies in the shape of hearts over the open grave, the tombstone with space for one more name, the hearse leaving too, with only one driver. We were five, me driving, my husband, front-seat passenger, three almost grown children, tight, really tight, in the back, every single one of them fast asleep.
**
Secret Season
In this leafless woodland, I have come
to walk into my father's death.
Trees connive, latch their fibrous anchors
around the soles of my wet shoes, ignite
trip-wires. Ask nothing —
it is less than nothing. I cannot name loss,
so I will call it my secret season.
My father, tossed inside the winter of a coffin,
withered, offered beneath varnished dead-wood
to high altars of summer beliefs. The path thins,
disguised by impacted leaves, feet brimming
at the edges of my footprints, pressed
to the route I must explore. I have yet to free
my body of this union. Still, the coiled heron swoops
in spring — fanned wings
I could quietly rest on — and seaweed swallows
without restraint, bubbling under
the incoming tide.
**
Him
Our wonderful man with metal hands,
his huge heart physical inside us.
Our tiny steps in his shoes. Our
cleaning his reading glasses,
filing his petrol nails,
perched on his shoulders combing
his silver hair. Our trips
to the beach in his resprayed
car, his windows rolled up, his
tartan blanket, his indicating only
when necessary. Him lifting
us over seaweed, carrying
our buckets of crabs, his towel
over our shoulders, him rinsing
periwinkles, his giving out
bags of chips. Our visits to his Saturday
brunch, ham sandwiches and strong tea,
his cups tinkling on saucers.
Him mixing grout, mounting tiles.
Him plumbing, his window-locks,
his tool shed. His rusted tins of paint,
his scuff rags. Our neat, great
man. Our gentle, kind, strong man.
His long leaving, his boxed glasses,
his check short-sleeved shirt
on a hanger, hanky in his anorak,
his slippers, him on hospital sheets,
his raised bed rail, his open mouth,
his closed eyes, his cold feet.
Silent him. His human hands
grey as putty. In ours.
--------------------------------
Maeve McKenna lives in Sligo, Ireland. Her work has appeared in Mslexia, Rattle, Banshee, The Stony Thursday Book and elsewhere. Maeve's debut pamphlet, A Dedication to Drowning, was published in February 2022. Body as a Home for this Darkness, her second pamphlet, was published in September 2023. Maeve was chosen for Poetry Ireland's Introductions Series and the Irish Writer's Centre Mentorship Programme, both in 2023. She is completing an MA in poetry at Queens University, Belfast. https://www.maevemckennawriter.com/
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