Visiting the Seamstress

Shirley Gorby

The bulb’s flash calls her to the door.

She cannot hear or speak, but smiles

leading mother and I down the hall

to a room that smells of cloth

sewn with threads of smoke,

where the sewing machine faces a wall.

On a table by the window, a cup of biros,

a stack of paper – unlined square sheets

like baking parchment, yet lighter.

Their writing hands –

mouths with voices of ink;

gossip flows onto empty sheets.

In laughter, the shrill sound

of my mother intrudes,

and so I choose

not to hear, but watch

two faces, two bodies uncontrollably move

toward each other and back.

I read used pages,

and crumpling the names of neighbours

and mothers of school friends

into the bad happenings penned,

my hands become feet

trampling leaves to a whisper.

On leaving the silence of that house,

a wastepaper basket brims

with an afternoon’s conversation,

bar one sheet of paper that lies

hidden in a child’s coat pocket;

so deftly folded onto itself,

it can no longer breathe.

Poetry Ireland Review Issue 121:

Edited by Eavan Boland

Eavan Boland's first issue as editor of Poetry Ireland Review aims to encourage a conversation about poetry which is 'noisy and fractious certainly ... but a conversation nevertheless that can be thrilling in its reach and commitment'. There are new poems from Thomas McCarthy, Jean Bleakney, Wendy Holborow, Paul Perry, Aifric Mac Aodha, and many others, while the issue also includes work from Brigit Pegeen Kelly, with an accompanying essay on the poet by Eavan Boland. Eavan Boland also offers an introduction to the work of poet Solmaz Sharif, while there are reviews of the latest books from Simon Armitage, Peter Sirr, Lo Kwa Mei-en, and Vona Groarke, among others. PIR 121 also includes Theo Dorgan's elegiac tribute to his friend John Montague – a canonical poet, in contrast to the emerging poets Susannah Dickey, Conor Cleary and Majella Kelly, who contribute new work and will also read for the Poetry Ireland Introductions series as part of ILFD 2017.