Nuala Ní Chonchúir
Two Poems
Like Esméralda, but Luckier
Like Esméralda I sit, dark haired and white skinned, on a versicoloured bed, a red mohair blanket at my feet, golden cushions at my back. She mock-suckles her goat, and I, an invisible baby. Unlike Esméralda, however, I did not choose love with the wrong man.
Insomnia
None of my soporific tricks work but I haul them out each night: One, Mississippi two, Mississippi three, Mississippi four. White sheets, white clouds, paper, unwritten-on pages rolling to a blank horizon, But the plain, unpainted sheets soon turn to snow, then clouds; to contrails, aeroplanes and holidays. I don’t count sheep; they’re too substantial with their maiden-aunt faces, chawing on grass like so many facts, fixing me with one all-knowing eye, their unbearably beautiful lambs suckling in the netherlands of their curled woollen coats. None of my soporific tricks work so I have to begin again: One, Mississippi two, Mississippi three, Mississippi four. White sheets, white clouds, paper, unwritten-on pages rolling to a blank horizon.
Nuala Ní Chonchúir lives in Galway, Ireland. Her third short fiction collection, Nude, was published by Salt in September 2009; her poetry pamphlet Portrait of the Artist with a Red Car will be published by Templar Poetry in October 2009. Website: www.nualanichonchuir.com. Blog: http://womenrulewriter.blogspot.com
