MY POST-OP CASE
For days I carried about
A case containing a whirlpool
When I exercised my battered frame
Walking up and down
The cardiac recovery ward.
Inspectors came at evening
To observe the swirling liquid.
Well, is it slowing down or not?
I asked when one of them
Had stared for far too long
At my body’s agitated humours.
But they found it hard to call,
Like watchers for the shape
Of Proteus in the waves
That tumbled on Grecian shores.
© CIARAN O'DRISCOLL 2023
QUEUING
(i.m. Knute Skinner)
Oh yes, there is queuing beyond the grave
And sometimes it spills over to this side.
Take the example of Knute Skinner, poet,
Whose voice was stolen by a stroke and who
For two years queued in silence, not quite gone
Beyond the world but inching onwards. Once
I published a piece of his about a driver
Stalled in the top spot of a traffic queue,
But yesterday his family, friends and neighbours,
Assembling in a tumbled Clare graveyard,
Saluted him for getting the green light.
