June’s Poem of the Month comes from Drawing Ballerinas by Medbh McGuckian
The Orange Island
It was not the fault of the day
that it held objects fiercely
like a rose cast in brick
from a seven-sister rose bush:
the pivot of the summer
was so full of weather
the curtain of grapes
could barely stretch an octave,
one couldn’t count the grapes
on the clear heart of the curtains.
Each storm subsiding
in the gabled looking-glass
spun like a bomb worth
boasting about into unsuspected
freedom.
Every dialect
that danced on his tongue
dissolved her internal dream
of immortality with a kiss.
And part of the prayer was wearing
a green branch like a tinge of sex.
Riverside, near no road, it flecked
and slotted, and felt the handle
turned very softly from the other side.
from Drawing Ballerinas (2001)
by Medbh McGuckian
