Marguerite Doyle is a Best of the Net Nominated Poet and holds an M.A. in Creative Writing from Dublin City University. Her poems have been published in Skylight 47, The High Window, The Waxed Lemon, Dreich, The Seventh Quarry and previously in The Galway Review.  Marguerite’s poetry also appears in the Dedalus Anthology, Local Wonders and The Ireland Chair of Poetry Commemorative Anthology, Hold Open the Door. She has been Winner in Category for the Trócaire / Poetry Ireland Competition and was both shortlisted and highly commended for the Anthology Poetry Award. In 2024 she was Winner of the Poets Meet Painters International Poetry Competition, as part of Kenmare Arts Festival, Co. Kerry, Ireland.

Ghazal after Drinking Tea with Sylvia Plath

Butterflies in my pocket, scraps of ink-stained
paper, always poems leaking out of my hand.

Scent of jam for baked scones from the oven,
our ghost children laugh and play hand in hand.

Sweetening black tea with sugar, smoking,
she gestures with her sun-freckled hand.

Light fades in the room, she turns at the door
and puts a finger to her lips with her hand.

Notes of scorn in his voice, crumpled poems
tossed carelessly in the trash with his hand.

Headlights pick out cat’s eyes on the road
and I tap the steering wheel with my hand.

In the locked churchyard, I touch the rosary
curled in the palm of the Virgin’s stone hand.

I stand at the edge of the ocean, and throw
the gold ring as far as it will fly from my hand

The Abundance of Grief In Winter

The blue nightlamp of the maternity
ward makes the clouds of sunrise
stand out in relief over snow-covered
roofs, like a fabric stitched mosaic.
They drift and drench the church spires
in the light of their soft threaded
cradle. I dreamt I touched the clouds,
felt their sweet-pleated newness,
and rose in my ribboned white gown,
walked a sky of carousels, strung
with shining stars and sickle moons.
I stepped across a lake that glittered
with frosted diamonds, and envied
the power of cold to numb and the sun
her strength to rise. I skated a figure
of eight in tiny circles, slicing the ice,
the cold wind in my veins, pulling
me deep into the blue of anesthesia.
Later, by that high window, I traced
the face that could have been my own
in the sunlit glass; dazzled by tears
that I mistook for the brittle winter light.

Édith Piaf’s Last Song

Through the cabaret’s cracked window
her voice rises like a chanson in the air
from a slant of moon on an empty stage.
Through the cabaret’s cracked window
the song of a sparrow flutters and fades
over the rooftops of Paris and the rain.
Through the cabaret’s cracked window
her voice rises like a chanson in the air.

The White Dress

I undo it at the back and let it fall,
recalling all the fittings,

how I stepped in and out
of lace and tulle,
stiff as a mannequin,

how people gawped in the street
or reached out to touch
my tiara and veil.

I slip on my t-shirt and jeans, kick off
the tight patent
shoes I can’t skateboard in
or climb orchard walls.

Next door, Lily goes visiting
in her white communion dress.

I scratch my t-shirt and sniff;
inhale the scent of apples and oranges.

Calypso’s Farewell to Odysseus

Sitting at my loom, salt breezes drift
in the open window, filling the lace curtains
so they billow out and sigh.

I work the golden shuttle back and forth
on a sea of thread, weaving
its voyage, guiding its destiny.

August has turned from summer late,
and the heat carries streaks
of lightning beyond the shoreline

where foam washes in, hushing the moon
with each surge, like a balm
for her scars and solitude.

I go down to the shallows, gather shells
in my hands, offer them solace
and release from the deep.

My fingers trace their speckled tracks
and mottled shapes, what unknown things
abandoned them in the depths,

and press one to my ear, listening
for the howl of a coming storm, or a nymph
calling the sirens to the rocks,

so you will hear their song when you toss
on your pillow of oceans,
and dream in terror of the weight of the sea.