Genetics
Yes, you gave us your elegant hands
and capricious smile, but as I make my way
to the chiropodist this morning,
it’s your feet I’m thinking of and how
in your later years they gave you
constant trouble. I was still too young
for our podiatry problems to overlap,
though you did recommend a physio
who had worked on Riverdance.
It is only now that the mechanics
of what you left us are dawning on me,
and the impact of that tiny DNA tag –
fallen arches – takes centre stage,
while you are smiling in the wings.
Maurice Devitt is curator of the Irish Centre for Poetry Studies site, his Pushcart-nominated poem, The Lion Tamer Dreams of Office Work, was the title poem of an anthology published by Hibernian Writers in 2015. His second collection, Some of These Stories are True, was published by Doire Press in 2023.