Partings are considered in these two poems. Some tough love from Molly Twomey, a graduate of the MA in Creative Writing, and something a little more tender from Maeve Bancroft, who was conferred with a PhD in Creative Writing (Fiction) earlier this year.
Dearly Departed
Babe, since you’ll kill yourself if I leave,
could you rip out your veins?
I need a new ring.
Throw your body into the Lee,
so I can sail on your back under Mary Elm’s bridge.
Pretend I’m in Venice and its thirty degrees.
Can I keep your Nike sweater, the grey one,
it looks so good on me. What about your red
blood cells? You know I’m anaemic.
I’ll sip them in a martini,
your eyeballs floating like two salty olives.
At your funeral,
do you want me to sing?
The Pretty Reckless or Taylor Swift.
I’ll pretend to be you, clinging
to a bottle of gin, dribbling,
I’m sorry, I love you, don’t leave,
as if this isn’t the fourth time
you’ve stopped me with a butter knife,
the empty packet of your mother’s pills,
claiming you don’t need therapy,
and didn’t mean to sleep with her.
It was just a symptom of this weeks
disorder on DiagnoseMe.ie.
Listen, I am going shopping for a veil,
a little black dress, I’ve left a knife, a rope,
a litre of petrol and a lighter in the shed.
Molly Twomey
Departure
You tie your shoelaces at a quarter to eight
Head bowed, I see the ragged morning
Light strike your hair (turning grey) as night
Rolls to day. You turn to leave – Cedar aftershave lingering.
I touch the soft hollow of your pillow, discarded glasses,
Coffee cup warm your breath trapped within.
Tender words float upon fond glances.
The door swings shut. My blood runs thin.
Too soon, the cup will be chill as stone
And your hair will stop turning under a blanket
Where day and night and light are one
And we’ll always be apart.
I slide across and lay my head
On the beloved’s side of the bed.
Maeve Bancroft
TOMORROW: “Old Love” by Billy O’Callaghan