TOO LATE IN THE YEAR FOR WINTER GODS
from Basement Bedroom by Alicia Byrne Keane, a finalist in the Vallum Chapbook Award contest for 2023
If we go back up this street later
………………………………….(beetling, full of coffee,
…………………………………….craving precision
………………………………………..like a mineral)
I may not capture …….the slipped egg-white sun
ugly bands of cloud ………eucalyptus blurred by wind
this same way
the afternoon looks like a shield, …….boreaspis:
a creature sharp-tongued & striving
……………………………the word stone-held,
……………………………left over from slipped research
……………………………all nose and tail:
an unobtrusive customer …….reedy shape ….perched eyes
in the drawings you are inked, emblematic
already artefact
made of sips and spines
sometimes the terms I’ve noted down don’t exist
search engine-wise
& I wonder where I found them
…….….did I try to write two words at the same time,
…….….did sun splice the room into unrecognizability?
…….….…….….(In a minute the roof slates outside
…….….…….….will be rain-dashed.
…….….…….….I’ll have lost all my light.)
Dr. Alicia Byrne Keane‘s poetry has been published in Stand, Boulevard, Puerto del Sol, The Colorado Review, The Stinging Fly, The Moth and Banshee, among other journals. Alicia has twice been awarded an Irish Arts Council Agility Award, has received Dublin City Council and Fingal County Council bursary funding, and has been selected for the Irish National Mentoring Programme, 2023. Further poetry is forthcoming in The Seneca Review; Alicia’s debut full collection will be published by Broken Sleep Books.
