A Young Girl Considers Her Grandmother, Ballinamona 1921

Two slipped stitches at the end of a row,
nothing after my sister and me,
two birds falling out of a tree.

              My grandmother sits at the window
              by the sea, knitted to her mourning shawl,
              her hair a wispy halo of smoke.

When she stands free, it’s at ninety degrees
her bones brittle as burnt paper.
I thought she was searching

              for something at her feet, admiring
              her reflection in her lace-up patent leather shoes.
              My sister’s face shining in them too

a thousand years from now, those eyes,
interrogation-blue. She is so old
it makes me want to dig up graves.

              Peg, there you are putting it all in place
              pinning washing to the line in Ballinamona.
              Eighteen, and smiling wide with a mouth full of sky,

secrets stuffed up your sleeve
like cotton hankies, a brace of boys
crammed up the chimney,

               flying columns grounded in soot.
               Your own brother in a cage
               but the clothes are clean and your breath wordless

and reliable as your knees are on the tuffet at mass
every Sunday. Those sheathed boys
know your metronome heart. Know you, and all the Pegs.

              Margaret, Maggie, Peg, Granny.
              I am not a child, but trying to be
              or I’ll rip off my skin with grief.

Pages lost, photographs untaken,
gunshots, stand-offs locked up
in delicate lips so fine and thin

              they let nothing out, or nothing in.
              For now, I’ll climb onto your lap
              against bird bones.

Under your black shawl I’ll make a nest.
With each heart pulse time’s loose threads
unravel at my cheek.

              Tell me everything,
              I will be safe like they were.
              I imagine you standing tall and straight, aflame.