Kathleen Kenny
The Boy Who Made Me Cry
The North Star rears,
settles its definite light.
With these spectacles
it has never been so clear,
the night speckled
with miniature jewels.
I am finally long-sighted
and years away from him.
Work of Art
I will carve you from blue cardboard
into a cupboard with drawers,
each one fronted with a love bird,
a hummingbird on a bamboo drum.
A butterfly with purple wings
will fold over your gold handles,
offer you a flower and a plum.
Concupiscence will be our word of the day.
Cooked Goose
She needs to stretch out,
waits until she’s sure he’s sleeping,
then climbs the stairs
careful not to set one creaking,
creeps through the bedroom door
slow and tentative.
She unpeels her things
places them like feathers
on the white-winged chair,
pulls on the floor-length nightie
and slides in.
He is still as a mountain
under sheets of ice
where her legs make two tracks,
relax into flight:
He wakes then, prickling with sweat;
an arm moving across her neck,
her breasts, down her knees,
to her tucked-in hem.
Pulling, tugging, he breathes on her.
His full weight of breath, pressing.
The word she dreads
in his mouth, behind his teeth,
crawling out through his beak:
Please. It says.
Then again, Please.
The Storm
i.m. Teresa Kenny
We lay down on goose blankets.
Tormentoso had just begun.
I drifted off to the sound of thunder
over the Pyrenees
over all the lost hills
the valleys and ravines of France
across the thrashing waves of many seas
the thirsty leaves of trees, palms
until I came upon the Slieves
of the Mournes
where I curved into the wind
until I arrived at your door
and found you
under the eaves of the old cottage.
You were listening to weather reports
for northern Spain
whispering a prayer
for me to hurry home
wondering why I had gone
so close to the edge of the known world.
Feathers
The eiderdown on my bed lifts
for a moment, shivers
then comes to rest over my legs.
I am innocent of geese.
Innocent of clipped wings,
the goose that laid the golden egg.
My head is pink, my cheeks soft.
Something works its way out
of my stitched pillow,
scratches my neck.
I pull the stalk
and out comes a feather.
The questions to follow.
Kathleen Kenny is a writer of Irish parentage who lives and works in Newcastle upon Tyne, England.
She earns her living as a part-time creative writing tutor at the Centre for Lifelong Learning. Her latest collection of poems: 'Firesprung' was published recently by Red Squirrel Press.