by Ger Duffy -
You and I no longer look one another in the eye,
our children have stopped asking why.
The mongrel rests her muzzle on my lap
a mower judders to a stop, a jet pens
a line across blue sky. Rush of bird
wings as light enters leaves, tremble
of branches, an ambulance blares by,
then stillness.
Somewhere, someone is taking their last breath,
Somewhere someone is entering the fire,
smoke rising, bones crumbling to ash.
When the time comes we will lie down
before the wolf like lambs, while woodbine
and dog roses release their scent, heavenward.
Remission was published in Drawn to the Light Press and was nominated for a Pushcart prize in 2021.
Ger Duffy lives in Co Waterford. Her poems have been published in Slow Dancer Press, The Women’s Press, Viking Press, Drawn to the Light Press, Vox Galvia, In the Midst Anthology, The Waxed Lemon, Cathal Bui Selected Entries Anthology (2021), Southword, Local Wonders Anthology (Dedalus, 2021). She was awarded 2nd prize for the Oliver Goldsmith International Poetry Competition, 2021. Ger was also the recipient of a Mentoring Award in Poetry from The Munster Literature Centre in 2021. She was a featured reader for Cultivating Voices in 2020. She has been a Featured Reader for and been published by the US-based Poetry X Hunger Website, 2021.