3 poems by Tadhg Haran

Interface

We peer out of a window in this cosy hospital.

Sleet distracts from the sky as it falls

like multiple pendulums to the ear. Past the fence,

a stream froths over twigs, teeming with salmon.

Across from the stream, a lone horse wanders the field.

There are too many midges out at night to smoke,

so we surrender the habit, like those before us.

Rumour has it that during one group therapy

in 2009, the horse impregnated a whole field.

A surgeon from next door forced multiple stab wounds

in the backside of each foal. There was so much blood

it transcended the eyes, but you could smell it

all the way up in the valleys. We can smell

a guided meditation from a mile away. And

the fruit pot pudding pot herbal tea bullshit.

They take our phones as if gossip won’t

flow through us. Clickbait and interface

are like pores, for the specks of blue light

through the intervals of fog shimmer through us.

Abstinence

I skimmed the dunes like an animal,

left my keys in the car, earbud grease

pouring out of me. My shrill laugh

turned growl, flip-flopping in the sea air.

I moved against the wind, wet sand

kicked up from my heels. I wrapped

myself in runnels, scrubbing my boots

clean, then anchored as if ringed

by a moat, my moat, guarding

the impulse beneath my skin. But then

my nose bled, and my skin got scaly

with rapid eczema. I peeled it off

like a reptile, bracing for renewal.

And so the landscape took me with it,

each ripple folding me into foam.

I wasn’t afraid of the sea, but I sang

with it, my glossy warmth expunging still,

into a thousand seagull cries. I did not

skinny dip. This new stench stripped me.

The waves hesitated as if unsure, as if

seeking a feral virtue in a different frame.

Anyway, the waves resumed their lapping,

diluted my blood, forgot my shape.

Rituals of Men

People said it was the first day

that truly felt like winter was coming.

They stood under shields of elbows

and off-white hymnals, proudly

receding heads sheltering the women.

Tires ran late over the asphalt, birds

flittered between fields of carved stone

too perfect, too recently tended.

My form felt wicked, the weight

of unmastered hypertrophy in the rain.

In a dream, I carried you up

the aisle. Mum ungendered the roses,

then the dirt. I tried to remember

the veins on your eyelids as we stood

in the vestibule of faith, world

a worn gear, lagging, ungreased.

The mechanical whir of the ropes as men

in black suits lowered you down.

____________

Tadhg Haran (He) is a trans poet based in London. His poems have appeared in Scab, Perverse, Tentacular, t’ART, and Bath Magg, among others.