Uncrumple

January 2022 | poetry

This breathing light is

full of past afternoons, curved as sails.

I try to find the Mountain Man album

I would listen to in the last house,

in the lamp’s honeying, in the shampoo smell

and closeness of a rose-patterned quilt.

Some things are a sun

the heavy months have slipped in front of:

the songs I alight on are more recent,

but I listen as a Saturday fades

in that chore-filled way.

A core: in between the swoop of voices

I can hear my hands smooth fabric,

make small predictions.

I still find it hard to tell

which shirts will hold damp longest,

gathered in their furthest corners.

In other words, idle things occur,

and occur to me: my father playing guitar

by the rough stone side of a daydream.

Being twelve, the stalled shape time takes on;

the plastic strings, varnish that peeled

away with a small noise sometimes,

left flywing shapes. The feeling

leaf-weightless and portable.

Alicia Byrne Keane

Alicia Byrne Keane is a poet and PhD student from Dublin. Alicia has a first class honours degree in English Literature and French from Trinity College Dublin and a MSt. in English Literature 1900-Present from Oxford University, and is currently finishing an Irish Research Council-funded PhD study that problematizes ‘vagueness’ and the ethics of translation in the work of Samuel Beckett and Haruki Murakami, at TCD. Alicia’s poetry has been published in The Moth, The Colorado Review, The Cardiff Review, The Berkeley Poetry Review, Banshee, Bayou, Entropy, Abridged, and the Honest Ulsterman, among others. Alicia’s poem ‘surface audience’ was nominated for a Pushcart Prize and a Best of the Net Prize; the short story ‘Snorkels’ was featured in Marrowbone Books’ anthology ‘The Globe and Scales.’ Alicia is in receipt of an Irish Arts Council Agility Award.

Lake, Mirror

January 2022 | poetry

Saturday morning to ourselves.

No husbands, no kids.

The lake house, a friend’s but ours

for a few hours. We shimmy

out of jeans into bathing suits,

one piece, thanks very much.

On the pier, I drop my cover-up,

dangle feet in cool water. You say

no one’s seen me in a suit since the

kids were born.

No judgment, I answer,

all the while thinking

why don’t we ever take it easy

on ourselves, we women? Be more like

men. Never a thought to

belly bursting its waistband,

to skin once smooth and firm, now

sagging. Eyes never darting

downward in shame for appearing

less than perfect.

The sun behind does its magic,

transforms us to long shadows

dancing, shimmering,

transports us, two young girls

laughing, carefree

on a do-nothing summer’s day.

Peggy Hammond

Peggy Hammond’s recent poems appear or are forthcoming in Pangyrus, The Comstock Review, For Women Who Roar, Fragmented Voices, The Sandy River Review, ONE ART, and elsewhere. A Best of the Net nominee, her chapbook The Fifth House Tilts is due out fall 2022 (Kelsay Books). Her full-length play A Little Bit of Destiny was produced by OdysseyStage Theatre in Durham, NC.

Internalised: my mother’s voice

January 2022 | poetry

I ran
she said, you’ll fall over, stupid

I tripped
she said, one day you’ll break a leg

I sang,
she said, you’re badly out of tune

I smiled
she said, that’ll get you into trouble

I lived
without running, tripping, singing, smiling

I screamed
silenced her, claimed my stalled freedoms

Ceinwen E Cariad Haydon    

Ceinwen lives near Newcastle upon Tyne, UK and writes short stories and poetry. She is widely published in online magazines and in print anthologies. Her first chapbook was published in July 2019: ‘Cerddi Bach’ [Little Poems], Hedgehog Press. She is a Pushcart Prize (2019 & 2020) and Forward Prize (2019) nominee She is developing practice as a participatory arts facilitator and believes everyone’s voice counts, even when their stories are hard to hear.