A poem by Eileen Sheehan

 
dangerous weather

the garden exhales       puffballs
rupture       grasses pollinate in the gilded breeze
poppies pump their milky sap       capsules
shake themselves out       the air heavy
with wind-borne seed       your blown kisses
remembered        drift of your lips       waft of your hand
my open mouth       dandelion clocks
set themselves off          my feet
their bare calligraphy       etched by the stones
this flinty path       your long absence         honeybee
dips in every flower       a black cat crosses the lawn
which is the cat?       which the shadow?        cover
cover my mouth
 
(first published in Speaking for Scéine (ed John W. Sexton)
 
 
Eileen Sheehan is from Killarney, Co Kerry. Her collections are Song of the Midnight Fox and Down the Sunlit Hall (Doghouse Books). Anthology publications include The Watchful Heart: A New Generation of Irish Poets (ed Joan McBreen/Salmon Poetry) and TEXT: A Transition Year English Reader (ed Niall MacMonagle/ Celtic Press). She tours with spiritual singer Noirín Ní Riain and actor Cora Fenton with a show entitled Women’s Voices Women’s Stories. She has worked as Poet in Residence with Limerick Co Council Arts Office and is on the organizing committee for Éigse Michael Hartnett Literary & Arts Festival. Her 3rd collection, The Narrow Place of Souls, is forthcoming.