Jenny Hickey is a retired speech and language therapist living in Ballydehob, West Cork.

Her poetry is inspired by love, life, and locality. In better times, she read it at ScoraImageocht and Co. – a monthly gathering of local writers, singers and lyricists.

Some of her poems have been published in an anthology of their work; ScoraImageocht and Co. in Print.

Argument

I watch, distracted from my thoughts,
as they drive home points,
hammers hitting off their argument
with well-toned strokes.

This is no new task,
but one they work with practised skill,
each one using chosen tools to break the other’s will;
to place their levers in the cracks;
to chip around the edges of supporting facts.

I wait for the impending crash,
but they have built these walls before.
As they approach head-height,
one, or both of them, withdraw.

Shards

Last night I broke you.

Something inside me flipped
and I let loose a string
of angry arrows from my lips.
One of them hit
and your poor, gentle heart
got chipped.
I saw then, in your eyes,
the hurt surprise.

Tearing myself apart,
I searched the chambers of my heart
for string, for Selotape, for glue,
A little packet of Sugrue;
the things I need to mend you.

I found, instead, a truth:
in breaking you, it broke me too.

(Shards was previously published in ScoraImageocht and Co. in Print. 2020)