Someone else’s war
i.m Stephen Dunford
The city is a distorted limb
that didn’t grow this way.
Crepe paper twisted,
steel softened to liquorice.
I never got to ask you.
Do hares hide when bombs fall?
When bayonets are thrust against the wind
does the air remember the sharp trace of steel?
What is war when you’re not a human thing?
Where do you bivouac when the grass is on fire?
When you cry at every sunset, bow to each sunrise,
breathe with the city, feel each movement,
flinch even at a whisper of silence—no reels, no jigs,
not the beat of bodhrán, nothing but a soft thrum rising.
A Roslavets violin concerto.
It is in this symphony we forget
you left an impression on this earth,
it is there in the shadow of the rowan
it is where the hare sits.
Sinéad McClure has been published in The Stinging Fly, Southword, Ink, Sweat & Tears, Meat for Tea the Valley Review, Live Encounters among many other fine publications. As well as the co-authored poetry collection The songs I sing are sisters, with Cáit O’Neill McCullagh, Sinéad is also the 2022 winner of the Roscommon Chapbook Award with her collection The Word According to Crow.