Poems by Dawn Wood

ANOTHER


Viva! those swimming pool swallows –
that one!
and that one!
and that one!
whose undersides mimic with blushes;


Viva! those webbed bats that softly –
that one –
and that one –
and that one –
spirit themselves from the mountain;


Viva! the days that we worked here –
when the wind and the sun graced our lifetimes –
that one!
and that one!
and that one.



Dawn Wood




ODE TO MALAGA BUS STATION

The girls at the bus stop
are all mascara, napes
and their own reflections.
A man whose eyes swallow
the colour of his T-shirt
is asking about a number 4 bus.
I shrug my shoulders
but he still sits beside me
in the space I made
and we agree, these girls dress
as if life was outside.
The beautiful old trees
are masked by traffic.
I am glad to see his bus arrive.
Any more of this and we
would be in each other’s arms.


Dawn Wood



SHIBBOLETH

She left them a note to walk the dog
and I shouldered her luggage
while the choir who know me best
would dart looks,
fascinated by twinhood.

They would keep it up
even after the obvious –
hairstyle: maybe hers is thinner,
and the glasses she’d worn
since we were eleven

after the German measles
when she’d come out of Belfast
humming hospital radio.
It might be the single, deep breaths
That have left me taller.

She’d never heard our Mag and Nunc
and I couldn’t make her see
till then, the pattern:
call – response –and call again,
or the way the composer

might play around in the setting
of his version or even let it stream,
ears of corn, through his fingers,
ringing true to self
and world without end.


Dawn Wood