Poem
Michelle O\'Sullivan
Three Sevens
Three Sevens
Three Sevens
EastLate spring in Malmö in our rain-tattered lives.
Yellows and blues make appearances in kind
and lift the flatter land. From the balcony, we watch
sleep-nooked birds in the highest point of the lindens
and the woman who must descend flights to stand out
of doors to smoke. More often than not I hear you
humming. I am not oblivious to your thoughts.
West
A parade of bicycles. The backcloth of sea and red tiles.
Beyond courtyards, we enclose ourselves to smaller
secure rooms – alive to what might be movement.
Stilled worlds in portraiture and landscape. The cross-
current of a word or two floats. Footfall and weather
occasion to intrude; we imagine interiors against own,
darker spaces we don’t yet know.
Øresund Bridge
The train’s stalled. The queue has amassed to a crowd.
I know you want me to inquire. Yet I know you know
we’re okay to wait. The sea is fog-choked.
And the bridge. Palm-sides of sun try to push through.
You stare through the carriage-glass and steel
in the absence of being moved.
Or what I think is an absence of being moved.
© 2017, Michelle O\'Sullivan
Poems
Poems of Michelle O\'Sullivan
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Three Sevens
EastLate spring in Malmö in our rain-tattered lives.
Yellows and blues make appearances in kind
and lift the flatter land. From the balcony, we watch
sleep-nooked birds in the highest point of the lindens
and the woman who must descend flights to stand out
of doors to smoke. More often than not I hear you
humming. I am not oblivious to your thoughts.
West
A parade of bicycles. The backcloth of sea and red tiles.
Beyond courtyards, we enclose ourselves to smaller
secure rooms – alive to what might be movement.
Stilled worlds in portraiture and landscape. The cross-
current of a word or two floats. Footfall and weather
occasion to intrude; we imagine interiors against own,
darker spaces we don’t yet know.
Øresund Bridge
The train’s stalled. The queue has amassed to a crowd.
I know you want me to inquire. Yet I know you know
we’re okay to wait. The sea is fog-choked.
And the bridge. Palm-sides of sun try to push through.
You stare through the carriage-glass and steel
in the absence of being moved.
Or what I think is an absence of being moved.
Three Sevens
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