Christina Hession is from Dunmore, Co. Galway and holds an MA in Creative Writing from UCC. She has been shortlisted for Listowel Writers’ Week and the Saolta Arts Poems for Patience competitions. Christina has been published in The Irish Times, The Irish Independent, Ropes and Vox Galvia.

Rescue 118

It rides the rainbow from Strandhill
sleek, slicing through the cirrostratus
over Tubbercurry.
In Knock,
the devout spot its apricot cone,
mouthing a petition for its cargo.
Over Dunmore, a pregnant
woman rubbing her stomach
hears a grumble,
then the thwop-thwop of the chopper,
en route to Galway University Hospital.
Cleaving the sky open
like a C-Section.

Kalamata

One olive,
with the pit in it
– my order,
in this Fort Madison hostelry
for doomed souls.

Kalamata,
beautiful in its briny bleakness
– almond shaped, aubergine,
I caress its smooth flesh
in my Michigan mitt,
rolling it along my life line.

I savour its saltiness,
mould it into a meaty mash.
I am home
– Westons in Kalamazoo.
Pimento, Provolone,
mayo on my mouth.

I shuffle up the gallows steps

as slow as a Galápagos tortoise,
Pinch the pit in my pocket.
Perhaps the priest will plant it on my
unmarked,
untended,
unfrequented,
grave.

The Lamplighter

Samuel Winslow
sweeps out of swirling fog,
the clip clop of his boots on cobblestones.
The descending dusk, coat-tail close
as he manoeuvres the torch on the pole.
The lamp ignites, parchment-coloured light
picks out a cutpurse.
A woman of the shadows
saucily probes, “care for a tumble guv’nor?”

Lamp to lamp,
he illuminates sewer stenched streets
– ginnels that sing with tankard clinks
and the call of newspaper vendors.

At the standard at Pall Mall
a drunken serenade,
The guardian of the lamp
magics night into day.