Three poems

By Lisa Perkins

The Nearly Spring

The sky is a turning flood, a reflecting

blanket of misunderstanding, the muted

violence of dishwater grey and steel

Tiny protests streak through all the places

we want to be taken. A pinch of boy

and wave of girls enfold me, the air draws fur

by this bloated edge of sea. The end of winter

seasoning sprinkled thin. Look at them

taking shots at breeze, smiles as clean

as a surgeon’s spoon, medicine as hopeful

as a glass shoe horn. I swallow something

mouth-bound, not ripe enough to share

Rewind into the briny mines with sticky hands

in reach. I pick up the limping animal of hunger

Eat the rainclouds raw. Listen to the growl

of the creature of habit, set her free

We swim as time pushes against the heart

We swim as time pushes again

We swim as time

How the end of winter feels (haiku stack)

Eager as a bruise

Questions mine the dark, watching

the edge bleed yellow

A teething answer

Tiptoes the bracing heart line

Learning how to bite

Tickled flesh on ice

Fallow land staked with flagpoles

Welcoming mercy

It’s a girl / It’s a mother

The cadence of waves

flips hearts inside out, gushing

‘A barely pink girl’

Her gasp becomes me

Crowned in garlands of glory

A most perfumed wound

When we were new, blood

and honey dripped from a sun

we couldn’t yet feel

Even as we bloom

We bury mysteries as

matters of practice

Scared ways / Sacred sway

We mirror on arrival

Lisa’s poetry has been featured by The Mum Poem Press, Ropes journal, Poetry’s Dead anthology, An Aitiuil anthology and others. Her poem ‘Thrifting’ was nominated for the Pushcart Prize by Free Verse Revolution. Lisa lives in Dublin, a mammy of three who inspire her love of capturing the everyday.