Nella Rose
She’s looking ahead, down Market Street, and all she sees are walking palms in a dessert and what she wants is to be a resurrection plant, always thirsty, primitive, desiccated, but still alive. All these flowers that dissolve in the rain— around every corner is a threat: of lust, of love, of hate. She wishes for a mate; someone made of clouds. At the top of Mount Temptation, she would kiss his misty lips, hydrate herself with just one long hug, unfurl her mossy tendrils, bright and green and fresh; once more a rose in Jericho.
Otters
In the lilo dip of a decade-old mattress, gliding, dozing off; the rumble of rhythmic snores like poolside chatter. I’m sandman caught, soaring, whirling now to fall furiously, a bolt back to berth. Hypnic jerk and ghostly impact leaves me awake and frightened. He does not wake, but even in his sleep can sense my distress. He reaches out and holds my hand and then we are floating away, otters drifting downstream, with their little paws linked for fear of separation. He leaves briefly to return with a pebble to stave winter hunger—blue-grey, white veined and heart-shaped. I gnaw on it as the sounds of another world creep in, the beeps, whirr of engines, a maintenance crew carrying out checks. Prising my hand from his, I smooth his whiskers, wake him gently to roll on his back and wriggle a scratch. Later, walking alone along the towpath, watching white egret and long-legged heron fishing, I catch a flash of bronze fur ripple the river. Hand in pocket, I hold his heart.
Gaynor Kane is a Northern Irish poet from Belfast who came to writing late and is trying to make up for time. She has two poetry pamphlets, and a full collection, from Hedgehog Poetry Press, they are Circling the Sun, Memory Forest, and Venus in Pink Marble(2018, 2019 and September 2020 respectively). She is co-author, along with Karen Mooney, of a pamphlet of pandemic poetry entitled Penned In (2020).
Follow her on Twitter @gaynorkane or read more at www.gaynorkane.com
Flight of the dragonfly 