Untitled Document

Wreck
Caoilinn Hughes

It was about the time of the New Jersey Hurricane
I realized how laden the day had been
that had passed, with all of its processes.
I'd been given Gibran as a present and was trying
to separate sorrow from joy and would be
until I swallowed them down like swords.

I cut away from you through space
as stiff as frozen butter, leaking muscles,
two languages chopping each other astray,
leaving just swears behind in my head
and so many things to attend to:
countless things to photograph in the aftermath,

fragments of writings to decipher until the matter
heaves the debris of everything aside,
penetrates through bleeding, sweating, healing,
through the warmth and welcome ache of after-tears
to have witnessed yourself suffocate and be left
barely burnt words with which to re-write.

The summer's end storms of the world warn
not to dare take tragedy seriously, not to use lungs
to conjure up breath because that would be
as pathetic as sounds that fail to communicate.
So the ash mounts, and with it the voices
of an upturned house, charging for ground.

Caoilinn Hughes is a student of English and Drama at Queen's University, Belfast. Her poetry has been published in many journals and anthologies throughout Ireland and the UK , including The SHOp, Poetry Now, Crannóg, West47, Electric Acorn, The Lantern Review , among others. Most recently she was published as part of Annir Publishing's Anthology 1.