Sue Cosgrave

Dream I

I hear the call.

Unhusk my tongue;

a forked ribbon that leads me along

a kaleidoscopic byway

where every gnarled tree is ringed

in garlands of night-black feathers

recalling to me

your feathered boa

your spray-stiffened beehive

your hands

sheathed in pearls that glint.

You sway in the eye of my room

sour nuggets drooping to your feet—

How you cherish these apples of Sodom—

your new born babes

whom I now I endow with names:

Craven soul  Apollyon;

fallen light Eblis;

Dank,

daughter you deprive of warmth;

the forgotten Oblivia;  

the bounty-less Neap;

your empty Nix—

and then,

last of all

Taboo,

the waif whose love

is always forbidden.

I try to drown them

within un-dream rivers

but they burst in my hand

in acrid puffs

of ash.

Sue Cosgrave is a Russian-born, multi-lingual, multi-ethnic writer living in Cork.  Her poetry and prose appeared in the Cork Literary review, The Five Word Anthology, and Can Can. She was guest reader at the Over the Edge in Galway, Wurm im apfel, Civic Trust House in Cork, the international Al-Mutanabbi Street commemoration, and on the invitation of O Bheal took part in the Cork Coventry poetry exchange series of readings in the UK. Sue is working on a novel and her first poetry collection.