Today’s choice

Previous poems

Liz Byrne

 

 

 

I want to be two-tongued again

To go back to the time when I slipped
from one language to another with ease,
when I knew the contours of my Irish home.

To stand with Dad by the window, chat
in the room of our own tongue about my day,
my dreams. I want him to listen, really listen.

To be fluent again in the language I forget.
It’s a different house now, furniture sharp-edged,
doors and windows in the wrong place.

Irish says: I have sadness, joy upon me.
There are no words for yes or no. Dying
is caught, like a cold or a breath.

There are four words for family.
I always choose the wrong one.
Duolingo takes my hearts away.

 

 

Liz Byrne is from Dublin and now lives near Manchester. Her poetry appears in Orbis, Agenda, Butcher’s Dog, Crannog, Strix, The North and Under the Radar. She won the Best Landscape Poem, Ginkgo Prize, 2020 and was placed third in the Ginkgo Prize, 2021.

Ben

When she said ‘could’, it was clearly in italics
and when she said ‘one day’, the creak of glaciers
shuddered around its edges.

Dragana Lazici

the days are long but the years are short.
seconds are tiny kitchen knives in my back.
i stopped reading Dickinson, her voice is a sad parrot.

Abigail Ottley

Faces, unless they come swimming up close. are a blur of piggy-pink and ice-
cream. In the street, she doesn’t know, cannot be certain when to smile, when to
look away