2 poems by Fionn Andrews

Elegy

i.m. Joseph Nollaig Andrews

One year later, we planted

The apple tree—

Watched the fruit multiply

With each year

Of your death. How April

Would bring with it,

The blossoms. Blushed the pink

Of your tortured face.

That illness, how it came to be,

How you had failed to eat

Of your own accord,

Was a granted gift from god.

Or so father had said.

On the lawn, that summer,

He had used the word angel,

In an effort of comfort—

Apple blossoms falling

Through the snug June wind.

Visiting Hour

‘When you live in the dark for so long, you begin to love it.’

Raymond Carver

Again, you meet me at Reception.

Sleep-deprived. Insomniac

Of the Temple Ward. You lead us

To the garden, steering the lap

Of your routine course. Though

You shuffle early—your limbs

Giving way to a child-like

Weakness. Jellied as Admission Day.

So, we sit at the window. Split a Coke

By the basketball court. Where now,

You speak of autumn, a cottage

In the mountains, when all is said

And done. The Librium flushed

From your veins.

______________

Fionn Andrews lives in Dublin, Ireland. He is a graduate of Trinity College Dublin. 

Most recently, his work has appeared in Poetry London.