Mary Wilkinson lives in Galway. Her writing has been featured in; The Irish Times, Crannóg, Books Ireland, Tell Tale Souls (San Francisco, Ca.), The Dublin Quarterly International Literary Review, West 47. She was the winner of Listowel Writers’ Week Originals Competition on two occasions. She has contributed to Lyric F.M.’s, Quiet Quarter (sadly no longer in production) and is a regular contributor to RTE, Radio 1, A Living Word. When she is not writing she is to be found in her kitchen baking cakes, usually chocolate.

Café Culture

Jack is a puppet
with tangled strings
on a cobbled stage
outside the joke shop
near the café.
The garda’s request,
flecked with bog,
bellows to the viewing stand
double Macchiatos to hand
swirls of foam on dainty spoons
crumbled nibs seduce our lips
as Jack attempts to unravel
his futile knots.
The audience shake heads in
unison, regret the disturbance
to their hungry perusal of news.
More coffee is called for;
the Barista complains
about the weather –
we all concur
it’s way too cold
for June.

Lust for Monday

Let’s go back to bed;
to eat crab salad
drink chilled Chardonnay
and watch old movies
on t.v.
pinprick the atlas with
all the places we will never
see.

Let’s go back to bed;
we could be naked gods
dripping with honey
who gorge on fat grapes plundered
from the fridge
glistening behind closed blinds
our noble loins joined
disguised by muted
light.

Let’s go back to bed;
to devour each other one last
time beneath the
eiderdown, hidden
from the raging torrent
beyond the tear-stained glass
splattered with temporary
anaemic veins.

Jet-lagged

I am a snake this night twitching with empty dreams
in a barren arroyo strewn with tangled sheets.
Rising I slither to the kitchen
Run the tap into a belching drain watch bubbles become hot-air
balloons rising over Albuquerque.

You are eight hours behind me now
but in my frenzy it could be eighty or more.
I rewind. Replay. Pause for a sweet reprieve as you
grant me one last glance back from a crooked doorway
on a blue day when I felt sure
it could never have been any other way.