Irene Cunningham

‘Let me clean your carpets
your toes will think they’re in Persia’
His top lip stretched
and crumpled, stretched
...

It smelled of caked talc and bicycle tyres
small rivers bled into the seams.
When I entered the room I set my feet
in old steps – I never met the fireplace.
...

Travelling up country to a Glaswegian wake
we fly past a dismembered tree -
Venus de Milo of the hedgerows.
...

Most dragons belched fire:

old Sarah screamed
a brown stream from her nose
...

My friend lived in a flat castle
with a door that smiled
out into the world
...

When I was a child my father was a moth;
my mother would take the Sunday stew
off the gas and hide it in a cupboard
in case he ate it in passing spoonfuls -
...

Brim full of coffee on a fat Saturday
morning, flies skirting the ceiling
I think of all the men I’ve ever had.
The cod n chips, Neirsteiner, cigarettes –
...

That summer we watched couples kiss
on railway platforms, faces expanding
retreating. It was hot.
His ringed finger got between me
...

As the hush of this house seeps into my skin
Mahler tips my stomach, disperses me
through the French windows. The landscaped garden
shrugs off bright colour: home is rough concrete
...

My husband swims underground
through secret passages.
For him our home is a puddle of air
at the end of a long tunnel.
...

1

I hovered in doorways
behind her chair – always at my back
...

1

I sink my teeth
Into the twelfth slice of bread –
...

I hear ghosts in the long grasses, mocking
our deck chairs, our experiments on fare
strangely familiar. The end of the day gilds the van
it sleeps in a patchwork of scrub on the shoulder
...

I expected her to scream
but the smooth pink face beamed

It hadn’t done that before
...

Wind me around your legs
spill soup and tomato seeds over
my darned patches.
Feed me.
...

This laptop maketh
me lie down to worship at
sofa-net-dot-com
...