
by Maeve McKenna
Suppose there is no evidence
of your time here, & minutes are clots
on the brain. You babble, tell who’ll listen
you once lived — stewed apples, gazed
at your passport, wore masks, incited
self-harm. A wolf, a kitten, many caged
birds, all the desperate animals
who lived inside your wilderness.
Suppose hostages dream
of prisons only when handcuffs
chaff, in their wet beds, the nauseous
sweating. So you dissect eyes,
sever smiles, stare at the broken
body for proof, matted fur gagging
in your mouth, coagulated blood
like tapestry on the carpet.
Maeve McKenna lives among trees in rural Ireland. Her writing has been placed in several international competitions, published in Mslexia, Culture Matters, Orbis, Ofi Press, Fly On The Wall, San Antonio Review and many others. Her poetry is published widely online. She was a finalist in the Eavan Boland Mentoring Award 2021, and has work forthcoming in Channel Magazine, Marble Poetry and Black Bough Poetry. Only the trees know Maeve is working towards her first collection of poetry. Sulochana Mahe is an artist based in India’s former French outpost, Mahe. She dissolves herself day in, day out in social work, and art. Her work includes teaching painting to cancer patients, helping them overcome their sense of being doomed. She taught art to 150 prisoners at the Central Prison, Kannur, moving their minds to the softer sides of life. Teaching art to women at a care home in Thalassery gives her joy that colors can’t.