And the yellow moths
like some strange throw-away
tissues used up by nature
circle the lamp hanging above.

I wasn’t in, so she left me a note.
Each word a tangle of broken ends, some oddly linked
to the next with a ghost trail of ink
from her rose-gold marbled fountain pen,
a rare indulgence she’d bought herself.

truth be told
part of me has lived
in this box of disquiet
for years and years
let’s see

Because a woman woke up
and her head had become a flower.

A candle eats away at air
At the same rate that we do

A teacher guides his pupils past headless marble torsos,
dusty cabinets of tiny Attic coins, pockmarked stylobates,
to a large clay pithos . . .

For you, with your toddler bendiness,
the squat is a natural, easy position
while I hurt-strain, thinking of miners
crouched outside their front doors

Heads under bonnets
mechanics catch a wiff
of a girl passing

        extract from The Keen Is ar scath a Chéile a mhaireann na daoine: It is in the shadow of each other we live. Watching with the dying. Travelling with the dead. Phyllida Anam-Áire; The Celtic Book of Dying, Findhorn Press, Vermont, 2022 Àite...