Stolen Things

Waiting in a wooden forest
where rain tips you here and there,
you read the trees like you might read books
and wonder: What right have text books
to worry me?

I hold my hands and kiss them
grateful for all the writing
with the wooden pencils in the wooden world
on wooden paper; now I realise I have stolen
everything from the trees

~ ~ ~ ~ ~


The Red Suitcase

As I drag the thing through the streets of Dublin
it tries to refrain from chaffing its redness
on the way to a painful pink.

I have packed my best dreams
for a good  nights sleep
wrapped up in my warmest nightie.

I have packed the silk dress my mother gave me.
I have never worn it; maybe because
it is the most beautiful thing I have ever owned
and I can’t imagine how I would look

like something
with a face that isn’t lost.

I think I have remembered everything.
I think I have remembered
not to cry, but to laugh with my family 


* Fiona Donaghey says “I am a student at City College Norwich studying English and Cultural Studies and I love poetry.”