Now That He’s Gone
forget his ragged return
by way of Niko’s Corner Bar
after the bastards hustled him
from the office with a box
of what – photos, a dying plant.
Recall instead what you must
imagine: how that night his wife
let him in and held him
while he couldn’t speak, then
when he wouldn’t stop and how,
when he was finally still,
she touched him, doing again
in that place, at that hour,
the quiet work of love.
Poetry Ireland Review Issue 119:
Poetry Ireland Review Issue 119 includes new poems by 48 poets including Frank Ormsby, John Kinsella, Rachel Coventry, Aifric Mac Aodha, Gerald Dawe, Alice Miller and Claire Potter. Also included are translations by Richard Begbie and Kirsten Lodge, an essay on Bishop, Lowell, Heaney and Grennan by David McLoghlin, and reviews of Paul Muldoon, Paul Durcan, Sarah Clancy, Medbh McGuckian, Kate Tempest, George the Poet, and many more. The issue also features photography by Hugh O'Conor, Dominic Turner, Sheila McSweeney, Fergus Bourke and John Minihan.