Cáit O'Neill McCullagh
Tethered
There is always this one scene
a lens dips beneath the water
and you spy her
a woman floating
sunk in a pond or a loch
ribboned with sea-dulse
the lens - in and out
and in, and then you see
you see that …
that she is …
she is you
or the version you keep tethered
the one you have named Nemesis
sometimes there is a wire or …
tight-rope tight-slices her ankles
winds to bind her arms.
Her arms how she used them
like full fledge-wings
she turned the air into words
tie-tangled apron strings
(they hold us all
those mother-fasteners).
other times the plot twists
a noose clenched to a coil
made by a lover
a friend
another
you?
Her?
adrift
in flow
crowns of gold
a nest of serpents
billowed barley fields
all the willows weeping
(one maid a drowning)
you never really see her
your dreams are mirrors
and you are like Cousteau
dive-lighting every depth
if you did gaze face-to-gaping-face
get spun that full-flux double helix
you could never swim free
'always'
she whispers
'always'
and you remember then
the hand you once set loose
how it reached to break the water
how it caught and kept a mighty sword
Whale: A Planet Dream
(After 'Description of My Funeral' by Giovanni Giudice)
I was like a child being taken
brought by foot along the red-road narrow
it was only a question of hours
into that earth beside my own world
me somehow smaller yet more fearless
I was like a child being taken
her laid on her side in the sjusamillabakka
shadowy breath emptying into the ebb
it was only a question of hours
I was weeping as she drowned
my height buttressed in baleen
I was like a child being taken
into the blood-lined belly where we shared my birth
‘learn to keep dying’ she saughed ‘no death no life’
it was only a question of hours
that world beside my own always known
not gone-gently & no serenity nor bliss
she was like a mother being taken
& it was only a question of hours
sjusamillabakka – (Old Norn) between the sea and the shore
Cáit O'Neill McCullagh has been writing poems at home in the Scottish Highlands for one year. She has had poems published in 'Northwords Now', 'Drawn to the Light' and 'The Banyan Review'. She tweets at @kittyjmac.