there was a spot
on the inside my wineglass
and the spot was yellow
and the spot
was a hornet. I fished her out
on the bent end of a spoon – no, not dead,
but drunk enough to be so –
and placed her on my table
with another glass sealing her in.

the legs were moving,
the body
looked large as a thumb,
the stinger glistening sharp
and deadly as cholera. her body
was segmented
and her wings
clung flat to her back.

I read my book a while,
drank some wine,
watching
as she came slowly back from sleep.
the head moved
briefly. then a
twitch. I’m used to flies
which die in my winebottles,
but a hornet
was a new
and interesting sight. I wondered
did she intend her drunkenness
or did she
fall into it
as many do,
trying to hurt me,
and now
could not get out.

eventually
she rolled over from her side,
bad as a sunday morning,
and began to shake,
buzzing angrily at the glass.
I picked it up
to give her some air
but she couldn’t get aloft,
just stumbled
drunk on the tabletop,
yellow stripes
livid on the wood.

I thought of winos on the roadways,
sitting outside
supermarkets, sipping cider
and eating cans of cold soup.
I thought of litterbins
busy with insects, and pity,
and all the other things. I thought of myself
shaking in the morning
and wondered idly
if insects can have hangovers.

then I brought the glass down again,
slowly
and bottom first
and felt the wetness of the crush
and the relief
that my own hangover
would go unwitnessed.

DS Maolalai recently returned to Ireland after four years away, now spending his days working maintenance dispatch for a bank and his nights looking out the window and wishing he had a view. His first collection, Love is Breaking Plates in the Garden, was published in 2016 by the Encircle Press. He has twice been nominated for the Pushcart Prize.

Image via Pixabay

Nothing fills the space between them

So now he comes face to face with her,
no longer dead and an expectant look
in her pale pale eyes.

Through slanting sun shafts the dust fairies
grow in number and size
until the stairwell fills with moths

which cluster to shape
the words on his breath and
more appear as he opens his mouth.

He knows they must come
but that does nothing to temper
the dry delicate horror of it.

Moth words fill the space between them

Gently palpating each letter as the outpouring slows,
spitting out the last moth stuck to his withering lips,
he reads the hovering words,

‘Do not confront me with my failures,
I have not forgotten them.’

Not even his own. Borrowed, old, moth-eaten
cloth words smelling gently of burnt hair
Waving a weak hand through them

the words disperse, the beloved also fades,
the motes rearrange themselves,
drift through the sunslats
then appear to disappear.

Frank McHugh is from the west coast of Scotland. He teaches and writes poetry in both Scots and English, as well as songs, short fiction and plays. His poetry has been published in Acumen Poetry, New Writing Scotland, The Glasgow Review of Books, SurVision, Bonnie’s Crew and The Runt. One of his poems was named as highly commended at the Imprint Writing awards 2016.

Image via Pixabay

Hold my hands and
concentrate on three
questions to be
answered, faith placed
in cutting the deck
tripled, laid neatly,
the magic a blur,
the drawn faces a mystery,
I hold onto her words
as fate, the stories conjured,
laid out card by card
in a cross upon the table

Love, fortune, health,
what else does anyone ever
question, the intersecting
trinity of desires that only
the foolhardy or brave
dare to ask within the quiet,
knowing the answers
held in her warm palms
and soft, low voice
will not be what one
asked to hear.

Ann E. Wallace writes of life with illness, motherhood, and other everyday realities. Her work has recently appeared in a variety of journals, including The Capra Review, Juniper, The Literary Nest, Rogue Agent, as well as in Issue Ten of The Cabinet of Heed. She lives in Jersey City, NJ where she teaches English at New Jersey City University. She is online at AnnWallacePhd.com and on Twitter @annwlace409.

Image via Pixabay