i never troubled about living or dying
the devil
may care of my younger days
seeing my feet teeter on more than one smoking
ash volcanic edge howling at the blood
red sunrise
eyes always on the horizon
impulse fuelled jumps off mountain tops not
this unwanted text prompt
laying its lead apron on my chest like
a paw-pressing feline testing the steadfastness
of my internal architecture not
this reminder of the flawed material
bequeathed by my female line
miswritten encryption like
the unwritten inscription on
my love’s crinkle-browed
self-inspection at each small digression
this faint shadow
passed on from his father
to whom he is sometime brother sometime
stranger or another
and now i am older finding this undeniable
desire to abide for awhile
unbidden gift
handed down
from my
children
Originally from Ireland, Anne Casey is a Sydney-based writer/literary editor with work widely published internationally. Her second poetry collection is forthcoming from Salmon Poetry in 2019. She ranks in The Irish Times‘Most-Read’ and has won or been shortlisted for poetry awards in Australia, the USA, UK, Ireland and Canada.