Nuala Ní Chonchúir Poems

On Half Moon Street
we eat Tunisian orange cake,
under a painting of a melon
that spills seeds like love.
...

My body is a palimpsest
under your hands,
a papyrus scroll
unfurled beneath you,
waiting for your mark.
I clean my skin,
scrape it back to
a pale parchment,
so that your touch
can sink as deep
as the tattooist's ink,
and leave its tracery
over the erased lines
of other men.

You are all that's
written on my body.
...

An older boy
his front to my back
hooked around me

His brother nearby
leaping in the shadow
of a glasshouse

Their mother blows
long on a whistle
the signal for home

He unpins me
both laugh in my face
I wobble, free

˚

You lap through
the cleated velvet
at my core

Burrowing your tongue
along milky lines
and I blossom

My arcing back
and kneading fingers
are your welcome

When you unpin me
we laugh together
I wobble, free
...

I take your verse,
slit it with my pen
to see what's hidden
in its deep inside,
then I flip it over,
to winnow out
the secrets that
cower underneath.

Your thoughts
I transmogrify,
stripping them back
to a primitive form,
then I cloak them
in another lexicon,
hanging a new flesh
on older bones.

Each phrase matters
if not each word.
...

after Gerry Murphy
And then, of course,
your down-soft hair
your eyes of Liffey and moss
your ears of shell and curlicue
your nose of slope and steam
your mouth of sizzle and fizz
your lips of pucker and pull
your tongue of brass and honey
your voice of breakneck forgiveness
toppling down the wires to soothe me

your throat of dip and tenderness
your shoulders of silk and steel
your back of strength and curve
your arms of tattoo and sanctuary
your hands of languor and urgency
your chest of power and perfection
your belly of pleasure and plenty
your bod of bellowing nectar
waiting to be caught

your buttocks of drumlin and valley
your thighs of secretive splendour
your calves of ox and sinew
your feet of oh-so-welcome spontaneity
all of you.
...

The moon is battered tonight, bruised and swollen,
but she swanks above us, bringing joy to the chill.

Tallow-moon, electric-moon, she shoulders the sky,
...