Gráinne Ní Nualláin, "Mother"

I watch her hands
the way the lines
Life sentences 
parting only in death
d a n c e 
         and 
settle.

Dust gathers
in the light
but that band,
leaden load,
doesn’t curve
the ebb 
and 
flow.

This is how we live;

Given to the break-
Cracks hidden in the painting
of new days
old days
younger than the now
but only gently,
A steady knife
in the side
of something stiffened

and

                          shared 

Hand on hand
faceless expression
crimson secret
sheltered in belief
those seven
or five
or nine
The downpour of the senses
casting shadows
on realities of being

(Nothing filthy but the words)

Silent whisper

Arsenic 
in shapes
of merry men

and hands

                   where they shouldn’t

h a n d s

like the scorching
of new earth
old earth
lived and breathed in 
the pillaging
Evicting 
what is left;

sanguine

our fingers

           tongues

                     lives 

feeding on the shame
bypassing them

                    but

this rot is not our own.

Her hands
and mine
alike
but she
fingers of steel
crushing bones

and I 
have so much
to learn.