Eilín de Paor

Unleashed     

She stops with a tug, a raptor’s whine,

ears swivelling antennae,

back legs strained elastic.

This is her habit every time we pass this gate.

She never gives up hope of an unclipped leash.

I can see her as she would be, let loose—

a flash of white, tearing around the garden,

taking pots and bushes

like a scaled-down steeplechaser.

I recognise this chase—

want without empathy,

frenzy and resolve.

It ends in a stand-off hiss and growl,

the cat having escaped deftly to the wall.

Hedge School            

Let’s slip on up the Mobhi Road,

past the queue at sanitised gates,

you tucked flat against my back,

duck into Albert College Park.

Let’s swing through trees to a clearing spot,

spend the morning investigating under rocks,

loll under horse chestnut trees,

estimate the quotient of the swelling breeze.

We’ll know it’s breaktime by the traverse of the sun across our lids,

home time by the changing hue of panicles against the clouds.

For our return, you’ll cling, belly-side this time,

we’ll zip down the road, telegraph pole to telegraph pole.

I’ll scale the gable, hook the window ledge,

flick the latch, lower you to bed.

While the Whale Song Plays

What Lena sees in skin—

the pattern of its use,

its scars and weathering,

can feel in the tension of a jaw,

trace in the spiders off an off-white eye,

hear in the smells the breath confides.

What she knows from the wear of nails,

from the depth of shoulder grooves,

reads in the biliverdin

of a week-old bruise.

What she comes across

in tender covered places.

What Lena sees, must have seen.

Eilín de Paor has poems published in Abridged, Banshee, Raleigh Review and Belfield Literary Review, among others. Her pamphlet, 'In the Jitterfritz of Neon', a collaboration with Damien B. Donnelly, is published by Hedgehog Poetry. Twitter:@edepaor