After Orlando
The worst thing to happen this week, says she,
was that awful crash up the country.
Her dismissal is unlike that of the night
before Ireland’s marriage vote,
when a cat leapt in front of the car and brought her to tears
but my ballot deepened her grief.
Still, I can’t bring myself to anger, knowing
I am as afraid of stasis as she is of change,
as jaded from another shooting,
as she is by the outpouring of grief,
as confused, and in need of solace,
as she is by the news’ parade of strangeness.
I sit across from her now, stirring tea, envisioning
the tricolour flag I wave only in my mind,
and consider if her reaction would be any different
if she knew more than she merely feared of me,
and if the habitual, denying detachment she felt
was not unlike my own.
Éadaoín Lynch is a PhD candidate at the University of St Andrews, researching non-combatant poetry of World War Two. Avid beach-walker. Middling tarot reader. Black Books enthusiast.
The Kindling 