The Ofi Press Magazine

Poems by Orla Fay (Ireland)

Published in The Ofi Press issue 50 

Millionfold

In the back seat of the car she lists out

numbers higher than the sky, a million,

a trillion, a zillion, letters without

the weight of their quantity, a squillion!

Perhaps she is building a skycraper

in her head to match the height of those words,

or painting giraffes above pink clouds,

or planning to fly a kite of paper?

Each child asks what is the biggest number,

agreeing in time on infinity

learning of its meaning and the power

of knowledge, its imparting chivalry.

What starts out small divides and multiplies

grows and strengthens, a sun that never dies.

Researching Thomas Hardy

For Caitlin

It’s a midnight wire for help, a scouting

for information about the writer.

She’s driving down to Max Gate, hoping

to wing it on her route to Dorchester.

How do you document his life on screen,

extricate his bones from the paper’s page?

Who had brave Tess of the D’Urberville’s been,

is she a relic from a different age?

I follow her on the hard pagan earth

misused, loved, rejected, many women

hide beneath her voluminous brown skirt,

coat the dagger she drives with cinnamon.

And then the dim hope of The Darkling Thrush –

I picture my friend, the camera her brush.