Four Poems by Frank Dullaghan

How it Happens

Spring 2021 – For Louise and Ellis

She was with him

when they gassed him,

when his grip on her finger

fell away.

Then she kissed him

and was sent out

to wait.

Three-months old, post-op,

he will not remember.

But his Mama will.

This is how it happens,

how mothers grow strong,

how they strengthen their hearts

one ache at a time.

Swimming

For Ellis, Earth Day, 22 April 2022

You can get your two feet under you now

without any bother when coaxed up.

But you won’t flatten them to walk,

preferring to tippy-toe across the rug

when urged to do so by a tug of fingers.

You suddenly sit, roll onto your tummy, crawl

to where the rug edges the green sea

of the park. You reach out now,

let your fists grab the world, yank it,

rip handfuls of daisies and grass blades

to examine more closely. Mama brushes

the evidence away before you can bring it

to your mouth, and you watch, fascinated,

as wind scatters it softly about you.

This is how you want to experience nature –

raw physical connection, smell, taste.

You want it real. You want to bruise it.

You want it close. Now you lunge forward,

twist from the rug, take off, a little fish,

swimming through grass

First Day at Nursery

For Ellis aged 20 months

He’s quiet now. And serious. He watches everything

that happens from his point of rest. He’s over his trouble-

some day separated from his Mama, settling into sleep now

on her shoulder, home (as if from a long day at the

office). No beating about the bush, he bushed, hushed,

bye-babied. And his Mama hugs the small warmth

of him, the missed weight of him. The teared face of him

carried all day. It will get easier, easy, better all round

in a while of weeks when he relaxes into a routine,

takes one for the team, joins the team, is at home

away from home, is bigger, a big boy, used to it.

Noche Buena

Whalley Range, Manchester – Christmas Eve 2021

It’s too cold to be out in a light track suit.

So, I reason he must have been jogging

with the stroller he now pushes slowly

down the middle of the road.

It is also too cold to bathe in a kerbside puddle.

But that is what that magpie is up to,

until my approach clatters it away, water drops

winking like fairy lights as it rises.

I’ve come out of an Airbnb in one of those

big old houses on Range Road,

heading for my son’s place. A black cat stops

and looks over her shoulder at me –

balancing, perhaps, the bad luck

the sight of that single magpie might bring.

My grandson comes into my arms from his Mama’s

when I arrive, making his little mewlings

of greeting. Inside the room is warm.

There are cooking smells. Glasses blush with wine.

My son’s in-laws are getting everything ready

for a traditional Filipino Christmas Eve –

menudo, pancit, lumpia, lechon kawali. Later,

we’ll relax into chatter, a lazy nibbling of leftovers;

enjoy the slow, languid, sprawl of the sated.

But for now, I stamp the cold from my feet.

Noche Buena – Traditional Filipino Christmas Eve Celebration

Frank Dullaghan is an Irish writer currently living in the UK. He has previously lived and worked in Dubai and Kuala Lumpur. Cinnamon Press has published 5 collections of his poetry, most recently, In the Coming of Winter, 2021. He has also 2 novels and a screenplay, as yet unpublished. He holds an MA in Writing from the University of South Wales.