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ONLINE BOOKSTORE FEATURED TITLES

Best of Irish Poetry 2010
Editor: Matthew Sweeney

Songs of Earth and Light
Barbara Korun poems translated by Theo Dorgan

Done Dating DJs
by Jennifer Minniti-Shippey
Winner, 2008 Fool for Poetry Competition

Richesses: Francophone Songwriter Poets
Edited and translated by Aidan Hayes

Munster Literature Centre

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RÓISÍN KELLY

Roisin Kelly was born in Northern Ireland but has mostly lived south of the border. After completing her MA in Writing at NUI Galway, she moved to Cork City where she currently lives and writes. Previous and upcoming publications that feature her work include the Bohemyth, Wordlegs, Mslexia, HARK Magazine, the Stinging Fly and the Interpreter's House. In 2014 she was placed second in the Dromineer Literary Festival poetry competition, and third in the Red Line Book Festival poetry festival.

Bath

Like two children at bathtime

we’re knee-to-knee, in a candlelit shimmer

both wary of this gesture's

studied romance.

You lean back against the taps.

With your damp hair slicked

behind your ears

you seem younger, and look uneasy

with my toes’ gentle testing

of a softness between your legs

at once expected

and unfamiliar.

So this is your body

this is mine.

We waited for this moment

though it's grown old quickly.

Now there is just

the leanness of you, and parts of me

that survived

a hair-removal apocalypse.

Afterwards, you towel my hair

like a parent would

too roughly.

But you are a naked man

and you are looking at me

as if I am also a stranger.

©2015 Róisín Kelly

Author Links

Prizewinning poem by Róisín Kelly in the Dromineer Poetry Competition

'Otter': poem by Roisin Kelly in the Bohemyth

More work by Róisín Kelly in Southword