In Sabina

. . . cast adrift
by a faint rippling
of wings, the sudden birth
of bird-speak flutters
across dips and hills

I know a language lost to me
lies out there
clitoral as the orange
pomegranate flower
open

to the thrill of thunder
clattering
and the lightning
in my soul.

 

 

(Untitled)

mid-afternoon
mid-life
mid-dream.
Exactly where it’s at.

The tempo of clouds
like ice flows
drifting off the window frame.
A slow clearance
of winter stock
to be replaced with fresh
organic afternoons
sky sheets the colours
of coral seas.

A curious customer
stops on the window ledge
magpie beady eyes
poking in at mountains
of paper work, the stale grey
landscape of last year’s
wasteland
and instantly flies away.
 
Beyond the west wall
the sun is sinking
faintly gold
into the fault-lines and rubble
of other people’s lives
on the shaken side
of the world
curiosity no more daring here
than boredom
a clear sky.

Today
exactly nothing
has changed
exactly nothing
has stayed the same.

 

 

 

Crush

amidst all the woulds and would nots
a stomach churned in knots. To be the centre
of the hunt, the one sought-after: who would
not? One the tender stalk of asparagus in a wood
hiding by the dry bed of a river. To be plucked
and savoured and sit in a sated gut. The end
an end in itself.
One the tender child
on the far bank of childhood. She turns
coyly on a breath, a clin d’oeil
the kind that would easily spot asparagus,
a lingering smile that bids farewell to innocence
while holding everything close to her chest.
To be embraced, in the end, by the earth
that feeds the roots – a simple need, a practiced kiss
a stalk that stretches to the sky.

 

Copyright © Anamaría Crowe Serrano, 2005.

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Anamaría Crowe Serrano lives in Dublin and translates Italian and Spanish poetry. Her poems and short stories have appeared in a number of magazines, including Jacket.