Poems 

by Maire Morrissey-Cummins

on the galvanised roof

drowning out the Royal show band

on the radio.

It was a Saturday in summer,

your baking day

and Sean and I

were on the dining room table,

a sheet of brown paper

and box of crayons between us,

colouring our dreams.

I drew our house

with a curving avenue,

an apple tree

at the bottom of the garden.

Chubby fingers struggled

with a thick red crayon

circling shiny apples on the tree.

I watched you measuring flour,

iron weights balancing the scales.

I could hear the click of the latch

on the door beneath the sink,

twiddling of a bottle top

clink of glass

swish and swallow

in rhythm with the rain.

Caught,

our eyes locked,

your caustic glare

darted the pit of my stomach.

I clasped my crayon

gouging the winding path.

You snarled my name,

snatched me from the table

bruised me up the stairs

to my room.

I knew that atonement

would be my only route to your love

and that the entrance to our home

was not blood red

by accident.

Bird Formations

Winter morning
passing flooded fields,
a skein of geese
surged in formation
crossing sleet skies above,

and it sparked a memory
of a younger brother
scurrying upstairs,
a flash of blue

cupped in his hands,

his secret stashed
in a rusty tin,

He had a collection of eggs,
speckled, coloured and sized,
separated by cardboard wedges.
He fumbled in nervous excitement
producing a handbook on birds

from the lining of his coat.

I instinctively knew it was wrong
and told him so,

just a hobby, he said,
only collect the eggs,
blow them empty

but the mother in me
was awakened.

I wept for all those dead babies

Máire lives in Greystones, Co. Wicklow, Ireland.  She is early retired and has found joy in poetry and art. She frequently gets lost in words or paint.  She has been published with Every Day Poets, Wordlegs, The First Cut, A New Ulster, Open Road Review, Your Daily Poem, Bray Arts, The Galway Review, Verseland, Notes from the Gean, A Hundred Gourds, Lynx, Sketchbook, The Never Ending Story, Chrysanthemum and many online and print magazines worldwide. She is a member of Haiku Ireland. She was listed in the top 100 European Haiku writers for 2012.