Where the river inhaled me
Down by crumbling mills the Lee was a smooth breath
above the weir. This place I knew
where I tasted youth, an extended hug, flew up sycamores
dark against setting light, pivoted the stars,
went beyond what I liked, spilled bitter dregs in the grass.
Lacking the echolocation of the bat,
again and further again
returned and forgot.
The only mammal with wings flitting overhead,
l lugged sacks of despair,
an assortment of rocks on my stooped shoulders,
sank right in
until my breath was algae green. She spat me back up,
leaf scum on my skin, miles from anywhere I knew.
There’s Always the Devil
drawn from a stagnant pool, a runt of a fish
gasped at all-wrong air. Twisted on the shore,
she tried to rock her way back to the murky bed.
The sun was too close, light scalded her eyes.
A nightmare, that’s all. A state of mind that’s a constellation
of mostly harsh consonants. A wretched contortion,
anti - spheres of air and seed, a wish in dandelion fields.
A shot of this thing nobody talks about
drew me to the watery fence, the past fathoms deep,
and those who waited, patient above, waited.
Self-medication was a broken wheel, a desperate swim,
intimate, euphoric, until I plummeted
into reckless despair, bathing guilt and remorse in my blood.
I tried to wean myself off -
I sink in until my breath is gone. The devil greets me
with a crumpled grin,
topples into salmon that swim for the sea. I contort my tongue
around the word. The depths of an empty canvas unfold.
________________
Alison McCrossan is from Cork. Publications include Southword, Stand, Orbis, The Honest Ulsterman, and Abridged. She was longlisted in The National Poetry Competition and shortlisted in The Bridport Poetry Prize
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