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/