Poems by Marion McCready (UK)

Published in The Ofi Press issue 42 

Iceland Poppies

"the women, they do not wait until they are very old for death to take them,
but…take themselves out of life, some by means of the poppy”
                                                                                       - Heracleides

I’ve been growing them in my garden

for some time now.
And what a row of glories they are –
fire-flowers pulsing in the grass.

When the sun catches their gold

and orange backs, they glow
like stained glass – their papery skins
mirroring my own.

I’m trying to imagine the warm petals
melting on my tongue,

sticking to the roof of my mouth
like communion wafers.
And then biting down

on the raw green seeds.

When the time comes
I want it to be spring.
I want to make my bed
among the poppies –
for the sun to shine through me
as through a cathedral window;

to dissolve
on tongues of air.

 Dinner

I am a crucifix

strapped to a table.

I can feel the baby coming –

its body pushing between my tied legs.

The doctor will come 

when he's good and ready

But the fish in my belly is slipping,

slipping away from me.

It thinks it’s an autumn leaf –

crushed and falling

from a tree.

I am that tree.

Rooted in red leaves –

I've been here so long algae

is growing around me;

its green webbing stretched

across my face.

My baby is blackening

in the tunnel of my body;

it’s leaking from me

into a puddle of leaves.

The doctor does not come –

he is still eating;

       cutting, forking,

savouring his rare meat.

Marion McCready  lives in Argyll, Scotland. Her first full-length collection is Tree Language (Eyewear Publishing, 2014).

Image: "Iceland Poppy" by Takashi M.