Poem: Prayer on the Eve of My Covid Test

(after Tracy K Smith)

For apple jelly, & every home-made sweetness
For it always to be the first time that we kissed
For the No that was the truth
And the No that became the lie. For gaps.
For the wild seas swimming through me. For one broken whelk,
For the way She lies on the sand & carries the sound
of our wombs. For my mother.
For my father. For those four fey winds
that threw them together & then rent them apart.
For this moment. For my seven cats.
For the unexpected. For the touch of your hand.
For endless cups of coffee & passionate
Desire. For the cost of Desire.
For the angels that flew up between the branches
of the sycamores in Shangannon Abbey. For your ring
hidden inside the leaves of my favourite book. For the shape of a letter,
And the poems that pattern our pathway from this life to the next.

Deirdre Hines’s collection of poems, The Language of Coats, was published by New Island in 2012. Her work has been shortlisted for several prizes including the Patrick Kavanagh Award and the Fish Poetry Prize