Tuesday Poem: July Sky

Under a north window

From mouths of non-believers

we sang hymns, while her eyes travelled

from crucifix to holy picture

to crucifix, on the hospice wall.

We watched the lovely landscape of her face

the bones and hollows harden to marble.

A child’s grin lived in it

and breath passed from it.

The comet flared in the night sky.

We gathered, all ten around her bed,

our fontanelles closing over

for the last time.

Marie Coveney lives in Co Cork. She has won the Listowel Prize for a Single Poem. Her work has been published widely in periodicals and a large selection appeared in a Dedalus Press miscellany.