Live Encounters Poetry & Writing February 2021.
Attracta Fahy’s background is Nursing/Social Care. She lives in Co.Galway, works as a Psychotherapist, and mother to three children. She completed her MA in Writing NUIG ‘17. She was October winner in Irish Times; New Irish Writing 2019, Pushcart, and Best of Web nominee, included in a number of Anthologies, shortlisted for 2018 Over The Edge New Writer of the year, and longlisted in 2019. Shortlisted for Allingham Poetry competition both 2019 & 2020. She has been published in Stinging Fly, Banshee, Poetry Ireland Review, Honest Ulsterman, Poethead, Orbis, and several other journals at home and abroad. Attracta was a featured reader at the January OTE Open Reading in Galway City Library. Fly on the Wall Poetry published her debut chapbook collection Dinner in the Fields, in March’20.
Scared
(by Jeremy Zucker)
Just the two of us now, and after our walk
through fields covered in rapeseed, our Easter
visit to the well, little to do in lockdown, I ready
dinner, as you play piano in the living room.
It has been at least ten years, you were twelve
when you stopped. I’d given up missing
your cadences filling the house.
Not exactly Glenn Gould playing Bach Variations
but my heart overwhelms, as your petite fingers
tap keys, hold them down,
your head to your phone, playing by ear, a song
you love, Scared.
Outside, a blackbird sings her own song,
a wood pigeon picks seed for her young,
they wait in their nest, beaks open.
I peek ‘round the door,
your blond hair swings in the air like a lamb’s tail.
I retreat, never know if my mothering
is smothering, or not enough.
On the other side of the window, a robin
on a rose branch. I am lost in my own thoughts
as a swallow makes a racket over the conservatory,
now is the penultimate,
ultimate, forever the next
always out of reach moment.
Love Poem at 57
It was afternoon when we met,
through glass door you flew
towards me, like the white gull
overhead, calling out my muted
scream, its silver belly flashing.
White light split through sun,
portal broke grey cloud, the air
mercurial, blinding, my body
electrified.
I’d learned to renounce
desire, alive again, we moved
as if we’d known each other
a thousand years.
I kept together, passed every cctv
‘I want to be seen everywhere with
you,’ I warned,
‘in case you murder me.’
Our feet continued down Shop Street,
right on divide to Mainguard.
We talked a spiel of stories,
laughed at anxious jokes.
I took you to the water, the Corrib
threw its magic over us, gone
in mist our bodies sailing each others
minds, we stopped at the bridge,
eyes swam over waves, current,
swept in river rhythm, its gipsy music.
You spoke of colour,
how much you loved,
said,
‘I often pray to yellow.’
I linked your arm. You gusted verse,
crossing all our rivers
as I remembered a girl, aged nine,
scraping bark circles onto trees,
a face, lover, prince, a boy to kiss.
Ekphrastic Poem
Response to Edouard Manet –
‘A Bar at the Folies-Bergère.’
Wistful Eyes
I had a strong urge to come here
Despite my fear
To be in your grace
See light across your face
In flushes, your wistful eyes
Looking from this desolate world of lies
Your hair like leaves-
Longing for you, I’m relieved
To touch the plum of your lips, skin bright
As moon-glow, blue white
Over your shadow. Say yes it will be
That you will come with me.
© Attracta Fahy