Palimpsest

Daniel Lusk

Said the father came to her bed

and the gibbous moon appeared

in the frame of the window

with her apron, her wimple and beads

said she was the sacrifice

she was the lamb

in its perfume of hawthorn flowers

and the witness spoke not

appeared out of nothing, a shadow

and the witness moon spoke not

a weight, an invisible bloom

stinking of rank Fritillaria

said god is love

said this is what love is.

but the nightjar saw and the crickets told

and the lion in the mountain screamed.

Now is the bed of never,

the room and the door of forgetting.

And didn’t she wake there

to the weightless moon and its lightness.

Wake to the blood.

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.