Persephone
‘Look at me, Ma!’
Walking the beam,
She wobbles then
Pirouettes
En pointe
On a proton.
Daughters never see danger,
Which is their charm,
Till they come to harm:
Flowers scattered in the bubble chamber.
Then, implacable mother, I
Search under winter’s gravity waves,
Find where she hides.
Pomegranate seeds
Pulse in her gullet,
A fact, irreducible. Her eyes:
Dilated to mirrors of black
In which I loom large.
In light again
On visits home
She dances at double strength.
The pinprick pupils
Have shut me out.
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.