Drop-off and Pick-up Only
Fluorescent lights. The rhythmic clicks
of luggage wheels on glossed tiles.
The beeps of boarding passes scanned.
The wafting smell of sanitised
fingers and floors. The coffee beans
scalded in throat-clearing machines,
americanos going cold
in cups enwrapped by frigid hands ...
it’s all too much – the passivity,
my father’s fingers interlaced
atop his settled chest in some
contorted presentation of life.
I have a smoke outside
in a designated area
and watch a child, whose parents load
a car, buh-bye at strangers till
her lungs give way, the smoke in my breath
coming to terms with winter air.
Poetry Ireland Review Issue 134 – Sold out:
Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin, William Keohane, Gabriel Rosenstock, Alvy Carragher, Greta Stoddart, and Ciaran Berry are just some of the poets publishing new work in Poetry Ireland Review 134, edited by Colette Bryce. The issue also contains reviews of 18 recent titles, including the latest from Michael Longley, Martina Evans, Rachel Long, Supriya Kaur Dhaliwal, Matthew Rice, Doireann Ní Ghríofa, and Moya Cannon's Collected Poems.
Tríona Ní Shíocháin contributes an essay, 'Foremothers', a revelatory account of a "hidden history ... of women’s oral poetic traditions", excerpted from A History of Irish Women's Poetry; Ben Keatinge looks at the sonnet – a form defined by Harry Clifton in Trumpet 8 as the 'pocket masterpiece' – from an Irish perspective; and Tom French pays tribute to the late and great Belfast maestro, Ciaran Carson.
'Singles Archive' is the title of the cover image, by Colin Martin, who provides all of the superb artwork for this issue of Poetry Ireland Review.