Heredity

There’s no denying
the blood that goes through me
from my mother’s side,
leaving one snarled tooth
in the roof of my mouth,
an itching-post in the field
of my thoughts, an ogham stone
that shouts me down
with its unintelligible alphabet.

I put my swollen thumb
under the tooth of knowledge,
and the stone speaks up
from the underworld of my thoughts:
You were always a black sheep
like all belonging to you,
hard words like grains of sand
in the corner of an eyelid
shut tight as an oyster.

When a blade of light
prises it open,
there’s a tooth askew
in my son’s mouth.
It shines like a pearl
in his perfectly crooked smile.

Oidhreacht

Oidhreacht

Ní féidir é a bhogadh,
an braon fola a doirteadh
ó thaobh mo mháthar ionam,
a d’fhág starrfhiacail chlaon
im charball uachtair,
bollán tochais i ngort
mo mharana, oghamchloch
a bhodhraíonn m’aigne
lena haibítir bhalbh.

Cuirim ordóg ramhar
fé fhiacail an fheasa
is labhrann an gallán
as íochtar comhfheasa amach:
Cúl le cine, cúl le cine
mar is dual cine ded shórt,
focail chomh crua
le gráinne gainimhe
fé chaipín súile
atá iata chomh dlúth
le sliogán oisre.

Nuair a osclaíonn
scian an tsolais
a bhéal ar maidin,
tá fiacail ar sceabha
i ndrad mo mhic,
agus gléas chomh hard
le niamh an phéarla
ar a gháire neamhfhoirfe gan teimheal.