Buying a body

I would go to the mall in my white rental car,

father; choose lungs,

as strong and light as parachutes.

I would purchase

the finest pair of wrists,

the fastest feet,

and legs as fleet

as a stag’s.

I would go to the sleep dispenser

and find you dreams

blue and serene

as your favourite summer sky.

I’d buy you time.

But I’m home

from the land of malls,

and I’ve turned in the rental car.

It’s just you and me in the cold Sunday afternoon,

you gasping as the lamb

you thought your hands could hold

slips free; the mother bleating,

me not moving as quick

as you’d like

to shut the gate.

You urge me up the yard

the lamb’s black legs in my fist, and I wonder

why it takes so long for you to follow.

I learn later

you’re hardly able to walk it now,

but today you aimed

to pull the wool over my eyes.

Taken from: Rootling: New & Selected Poems Published by Bloodaxe Books, Tarset

Katie Donovan, born 1962, grew up on a farm in Co Wexford and is now based in a suburb of Dublin. She was educated at Trinity College Dublin and at UC Berkeley, and spent a year in Hungary teaching English before returning to Ireland to work as a journalist with The Irish Times. She has published four poetry collections, all with the British publisher Bloodaxe, most recently Rootling: New & Selected Poems (2010). Currently she works as an Amatsu practitioner and as a creative writing teacher at the Institute of Art, Design and Technology in Dun Laoghaire. She has two children.

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