Anne Fitzgerald
(Ireland)
No Air
All evening I’ve tried to catch my breath,
a heaviness pervades. Opening windows
alleviates nothing, no breath to be caught
since that night I fell for you in ways I’d thought
not possible, over the wine we didn’t spill.
You have bedded down my waking thoughts
in a slumber so deep I may never come
again to appreciate the silk lining of a kid glove,
finding fingers shape softness. And as you say
my name for the first time the taste is new
and unfamiliar. When the heat breaks,
you’re still in my head, like the scent of perfume
that will not fade. In those small hours
your shadow claims the light of all that is natural.
Prayer for my Daughter
After I am gone take
that small cardboard
box from Foilduff,
full of family and friends
down to Sandycove.
Step into a skiff,
row out past
Victorian Baths
into Scotsman’s Bay
until parallel
with Ballyghein
‘n’ Burdett Avenues.
Find the gap we used
see red sails from
our kitchen window
and there drop anchor.
Pull oars in
lay them across
one another
as pallbearer’s
hands in prayer.
Steady your spirit level,
stand like a Eucharist
Minister. From the hull’s
heart hold my box
chalice-like, give memorial
cards to fish
as if flies, photographs
cut to size, made fit
around mother of mercy
pray for us, squared by
indulgences shipwrecked.
Tides will read their paper
headstones, will watermark
betrayals across faces
cast from familial folklore
to the annals
like Commandments
if Howth is Mount Sinai
Kingstown Pier the Failed Bridge.
Districts Not Apparent
For best results
fast twenty-four
hours beforehand.
With the head
of a lolly-pop stick
I scrape internal
cheek cells
into a sterilised vial.
Add saline solution
‘n’ shake like a daiquiri.
Seal and send.
Wait for a lab
to pick percentages
hidden in ethnicity.
A dolly-mixture
result reveals
the sum of my parts.
I am of Ireland.
European. British
Isles. Iberian. Ashkenazi.
I share trace elements
from Siberia, Western
Middle East,
Asia Minor and South
Central Africa.
Yet, I am of Ireland
carrying a wealth
of geographies histories.
Note:
The three poems were first published in Vacant Possession (Salmon Poetry, 2017).
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BIO
Anne Fitzgerald was raised in Sandycove, County Dublin. She is a graduate of Trinity College, Dublin and Queen’s University, Belfast. Her poetry collections are Swimming Lessons (Wales, Stonebridge, 2001), The Map of Everything (Dublin, Forty Foot, 2006),
Beyond the Sea (Co. Clare, Salmon Poetry, 2012) and Vacant Possession (Co. Clare, Salmon Poetry, 2017).
In 2006 Anne founded Forty Foot Press, in addition to two School Publishing Houses, Monkstown Educate Together Press (MET Press, 2003) and Loreto Abbey Dalkey Press (LAD Press, 2004). She is a recipient of the Ireland Fund of Monaco Writer-in-Residence bursary at The Princess Grace Irish Library, Monaco. She teaches Creative Writing in Ireland and North America. Anne lives in Dún Laoghaire, County Dublin, Ireland.
For biography visit Forty Foot Press at http://www.fortyfootpress.com/anne-fitzgerald.html and on Facebook see https://www.facebook.com/FortyFootPress.2006/