Tonight no worries larger than this
moment. Take off
these bags you carry, put on your happy
sad girl songs, and make a dancefloor
of this city. How is it we have travelled
here to drink this butter-coloured
wine, express, you and I, delight
in each other? The planet
conspires in inconceivable ways
that you make sense of,
and though we’ve lived
for so long, my dear friend,
with these wounds
having reckoned with such violence,
the hurt has not made us small.
Look angel:
the doors open just for us!
Our arms aloft, we are lifted
clear into the night air, the ring
of your laughter a fanfare,
the wonder that bubbles a big romance,
and what stars over Dublin brighten
on Strand Street where the walls
have hopes they wish to impart:
u are alive, noli timere, love love love!
Charlotte Buckley’s debut collection, Raising Water, is forthcoming from Bloodaxe Books. She has been shortlisted for the Patrick Kavanagh Poetry Award, the Basil Bunting Poetry Award and the Gregory O’Donoghue International Poetry Prize
moment. Take off
these bags you carry, put on your happy
sad girl songs, and make a dancefloor
of this city. How is it we have travelled
here to drink this butter-coloured
wine, express, you and I, delight
in each other? The planet
conspires in inconceivable ways
that you make sense of,
and though we’ve lived
for so long, my dear friend,
with these wounds
having reckoned with such violence,
the hurt has not made us small.
Look angel:
the doors open just for us!
Our arms aloft, we are lifted
clear into the night air, the ring
of your laughter a fanfare,
the wonder that bubbles a big romance,
and what stars over Dublin brighten
on Strand Street where the walls
have hopes they wish to impart:
u are alive, noli timere, love love love!
Charlotte Buckley’s debut collection, Raising Water, is forthcoming from Bloodaxe Books. She has been shortlisted for the Patrick Kavanagh Poetry Award, the Basil Bunting Poetry Award and the Gregory O’Donoghue International Poetry Prize
