I trace the lilac veins across your face
Sugar on my foaming tongue,
A lemon-drop, dissolved.
On a bench we look out at sea, or was it a river?
I forget now.
The thought of you, at the window
The ticking of trains on repeat.
In this city, the streets are embroidered
With neon, bulbs like sequins
Blue, green, violet, red.
There are young boys racing
A supermarket trolley down the street
Singing sickness rocks my belly.
My innards clasped in skin
Pale meat in pink lobster shell.
I am underwater
In a silver swimming costume, tarnished at the hip.
Looking down a hall of mirrors,
I crack my eye wide-open, spilling
Vessels like metallic streamers at your feet.
I take your hand on the Ferris wheel
From here the whole city, tangled in light
Collapses all around us.
A world tossed upside down and inside out,
A snow globe in September.
My swollen mouth aches
For the words that line my pockets
Like foil tickets, confetti, smithereens.
Purple paper-cuts like battle scars
Each one for everything I could not say.
✱✱✱
 Kathryn O' Regan is a writer based in Cork, Ireland. Her work had been published in Aftertastes, The Coven and SALT among others. She is mostly fascinated with words and pictures and she blogs bits and pieces at kathrynoregan.wordpress.com. |
