On Collapse

Andy Eaton

I should have heard the man and grown familiar

with the scent of his shirt after work,

the look of those hands, the pencil lead rubbed in

the finger grain, the earth black crescents under his nails.

He lifted cars from off his chest, they say,

sent my father to the fusebox

while he shook there on the metal folding chair

– voltage where blood should be –

to finish wiring the hall light.

They say he knocked a bull

out cold, where it began to charge

my infant aunt. Tipping back

from his hand, one punch,

the bull fell like a cabinet off a truck bed.

Poetry Ireland Review Issue 124:

Edited by Eavan Boland

Poetry Ireland Review 124 contains new poems from Paula Meehan, Ciarán O'Rourke, Lizzy Nichols, Mark Ward, Gabriel Rosenstock, Özgecan Kesici, Doireann Ní Ghríofa, and many other compelling voices. Also included is Eilean Ni Chuilleanáin's remembrance of her Cork childhood, excerpted from The Vibrant House: Irish Writing and Domestic Space, a book of essays reviewed in issue 124 by Caitríona O'Reilly. Other books considered in this issue include collections from Annemarie Ní Churreáin, Mark Granier, Tara Bergin, The Cambridge Companion to Irish Poets, and the Collected Poems of the late Dennis O'Driscoll, and there's also a short interview with Thomas Kinsella along with an essay on Kinsella as poet and civil servant. Another Kinsella is this issue’s Featured Poet, Alice Kinsella, and all artwork for the issue is supplied by artists associated with the Olivier Cornet Gallery on Great Denmark Street, around the corner from Poetry Ireland.

Available now to purchase online or in all good bookstores.