The Tuesday Poem

The touch of him

At dawn, I lie on my side, beside him, feel his fingers stir on me again like blessing, then he lifts himself up, leaning on his elbow with his mouth so close, over mine. My legs stretch toward the bottom of the bed, like the first, curved line of daylight unfolding from its kernel into air.

I have forgotten the last time, this close, I lay under a stranger’s skin and felt it worm through me. My eyes closed then. I wept into the glare of the sealed lid. I see my body frozen on that ground, the bare soul in its mouth as if it was hauled out, half-dead.

Now, mornings open with his voice. My love stretches his legs and turns over onto his side to face me. I see the goodness of his hands as he moves his palm over and over and over my body, as if he was wiping clean, undoing, redoing, seaming the sore with his quietness.

Soon the birds and daisies will come. Last night, I had felt him bring my soul forward with love cries and a hush of kisses. I had stayed awake all night after, my flesh suckling the naked touch of his, feeling the sweet, steady breath on my eyes, until he woke, and moved,

and lifted himself over me, like the white light of morning gently arching, nudging my pale skin to pink. His mouth suddenly comes down through the bright, blissful amnesias. My hands are softer than what they were. Body of this woman, he is making you for love.

© Leanne O’Sullivan

*Leanne O’Sullivan was born in 1983, and comes from the Beara peninsula in West Cork. She has published two collections, Waiting for My Clothes (Bloodaxe, 2004) and Cailleach: The Hag of Beara (Bloodaxe, 2009). A third collection, The Mining Road, will be published in April. She has received, among other honours, the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature and the Ireland Chair of Poetry bursary.

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