Such time beats with its own ending, its inlet
\nits interior, its confident stopping. You followed
\nsigns to steal here, slowed to savour how you are<\/p>\n
beloved in this city-not-your-city. Your palms passed over
\npointed railings, stroked the leaves of suburban hedges,
\na rosary you can’t visit on my skin, here, at the centre.<\/p>\n
Mouthstrung, we contemplate the surfaces of all things,
\ntwo stone monkeys playing pool in the stone face
\nof a building, for the want of other things.<\/p>\n
Blue <\/strong><\/p>\n My goodness! Born azure, No, no. Directions<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cI am always shocked when people give me directions and they actually get me where I’m going: words become road.” (\u00c3\u2030douard Lev \u00e9)<\/em><\/p>\n Cottonmouth is clearing away empties The roof lifts quietly off O’Donoghue’s \u201cAnd how am I meant to get where I’m going, turning faces upwards, one face and then another, ABOUT THE AUTHOR<\/strong> Mouthstrung, we contemplate the surfaces of all things, By Ailbhe Darcy.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":155,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[484,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40989","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-maintenant","category-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40989","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/155"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40989"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40989\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nbruising, turning, queer fruit
\ntoo long from the incubator,
\ngod’s wrath, ladyfingers, blue
\nmoon, shepherd’s curse, burst
\nyeh, nobody’s business: too
\nlong fiddleheaded in our noggins
\nas homunculus, punishment
\nfor that transgression,
\nof loving him before he is:
\nBlue. Oh well, paper him
\nwith tinfoil, zip him in, hook
\nhim up, wire him: lights,
\nlet there be lights, spin spin
\nhim until he picks up again, a
\ndark lettuce, fret, fret: long waits,
\nblue nights by the ward bed, peek
\n-a-boo in the ICU, peering in
\nto the baked potato: little
\ncreature. Live. And living,
\nhanded to you, wrapped still,
\nstill blue, to home for a bibelot?<\/p>\n
\nA cloud of birds
\nrises abruptly over Edison,
\nfinely wrought as hatchings
\non a well-mown lawn, faster
\nthan I can point them out.
\nA vee-shaped vee of geese,
\nmoving town, upwardly
\nhonking, an animal who
\nlifts out of my arms
\nhis haunches, calling ho,
\njumping square. They
\nsay cats can
\ncome blue.<\/p>\n
\nso they keep their voices low. No one must know
\nthat the glass he’s handed his companion
\nis filled with her own reflection, kaleidoscopic
\nas a friendship tested in four different cities,
\na phrase repeated so it scores and blurs.<\/p>\n
\nclaiming no one’s attention, the breeze
\ndimples, pouts and puckers, in its private strop.
\nHe’s telling her a bay with gannets swooping,
\ntender openings, lips that part then purse.
\nPuddle patter. Alien braille. Goose bumps.<\/p>\n
\ncarrying this glimpse of my own small death?”
\n\u201cOne foot before the other,” he returns.
\nShe almost curses him. But then
\nhe does the thing that makes the faith:
\nsays it all over again. Suffolk Street is down there,<\/p>\n
\nhis words become road. \u201cPractice first,
\nand then belief,” he says. She drains her pint.
\nShe takes a step,
\nshe takes a step,
\ndown into that underworld.<\/p>\n![\"darcy-leuven\"](\"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/darcy-leuven-300x228.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\nAilbhe Darcy<\/strong> was born in Ireland in 1981, where she studied for a BA in English and French at University College Dublin, spending a year at the University of Nanterre, Paris X. After living briefly in London and Cambridge, she is now based in South Bend, Indiana. In 2009 she published a chapbook-length collection of her poems, A Fictional Dress<\/em>, with tall-lighthouse press; and she published her first full-length collection, Imaginary Menagerie<\/em>, with Bloodaxe Books this year. She co-edits an online journal of new art and writing with Clodagh Moynan, called Moloch<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"![](\"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/darcy-leuven-150x150.jpg\")
beloved in this city-not-your-city. Your palms passed over
\npointed railings, stroked the leaves of suburban hedges,
\na rosary you can’t visit on my skin, here, at the centre.<\/p>\n
\ntwo stone monkeys playing pool in the stone face
\nof a building, for the want of other things. <\/p>\n