Keen for A—

after ‘Caoineadh Airt Uí Laoghaire’ by Eibhlín Dubh Ní Chonaill

Mo ghrá go daingean tú!
                                                    My lover, my glowing treasure!

3
Keen for A—

O strong-handed man of mine,

You who could pick me up
with the slightest glance
across the marbled bar,
disco ball glints on pearl buttons,
and lift of your chin, gesturing
to the heavy wood door.
Outside is unsure, various,
so we go without speaking.
Our walk home is punctuated
by you hurling me against doors,
shutters, shaded entryways.
The tang of bergamot lingers
on your collar. Woodsmoke
mixed with cigarettes
strongest in your mouth
which my tongue savoured
and greedily drank.

do chuid fola leat 'na sraithibh;
is níor fhanas le hí ghlanadh
ach í ól suas lem basaibh.

                                                        Love, your blood is the fore ground,
                                                        seeping into it. Black muck on your face.
                                                        I take as much of you into me as I can.



11
Regarding A—’s killer

1 Rage

I imagine the thin-wristed villain
who wrested you out of the world:
faceless, formless; one limb
of a many-armed monster of Provos

or homophobes. All I can picture
is cruelly veined forearms forcing
your soft skin to split and part
again and again. A disembodied grin,

yellowed dog teeth. Barking
Fenian? Faggot? I will light a fire each night
on the Giant’s Ring outside the city
and this animal will heed my signal.

On their form I will inflict
every injury, profound and grievous.
Cleave each weasel eye
from the socket, parade their corpse

through the city streets; eat
their cold flesh, revel in their life ending,
and burn and ruin and cut apart
any living thing poisoned by them.

That is my promise.


2 What comes after (Nothing)

The house falls dark. The electric has run out, and I’m too
ghostly to replenish it. Post mortems mean the funeral is
delayed. Word is spreading that I’m not receiving visitors;
the cat has slept on your side of the bed since, his head dug
between the pillow and the lavender sheet. Some of your
hair on the hairbrush I smell sometimes. From bed I watch
dust settle on the bunch of roses an old boyfriend brought
me. People mean well. The roses — almost block colour
red, vivacious as Lego — respire beyond my notice, and
the hedge of fir outside the window moves tentatively in
an inaudible wind. A—’s killer reclines somewhere, alive
and watching the same wind along a different part of its
journey, perhaps jostling a tree outside his home. Does he
consider me? All this time I have to think.

Mo ghrá go daingean tú!
                                                        My love! My affectionate calf!

16
Calf by A—’s Grave. Six Months After

Love,

The evening bristles with a fine mizzle
as I come to visit you. Still no grass
over your head, but this bare bald mound
drinks as much rain as it can bear.

Bunches of heal-alls skirt your perimeter.
I consider shovelling them all into my mouth.
Later a webpage outlines that these purple
wildflowers are also called heart-of-the-earth.

A troupe of brown and fair cows munch
grass (and healing herbs!) in the adjacent field,
and a calf — with a semi-circle of fair hair
that suggests a glamorous full fringe —

pauses from its evening constitutional
around the limits of its hilly patch to watch
me watch you. Some leaves and stems fall
from its ajar mouth. Like a bolt it bolts

half a field away, as though what it saw
or what I was seeing were unbearable.

Is éirigh suas id' sheasamh
                                                        Get up. Shake off this coldness.

21
Invocation

Oh my bright-eyed friend, man dear,

A—, my memory of you
refuses to fade, even cluttered
as I am with receipts, pens,
newly acquired phone numbers.

This remembering
sustains me (my hope
for your grand return); return
from this vanishing act.

Yes . . . not dead but vanished,
from which I can hear footsteps,
proof of ongoingness, even
if it is far, far from me.

If you will not return
to these fields that spew
flowers for us: be well,
drink cold water, remember

the life we fashioned
against extraordinary odds;
how we thought the church bell
soundtrack to our walks.

And with all this said, all of it,
I cannot abandon the sense
that you will beat me home,
feet up, sun lightening your eyes.