The Lane

by Annemarie N’ Churre’in

Breathless, the whole way
down, skimming
fuchsia, rag-ferns,

to the road below
where an old school bus
waited;

a stream of girls,
wet hair trailing
a scent of apples

in the left-behind air,
orchards
imagined us

fetching from wells,
pitchers of silver equations,
poems, plant names.

In the evenings,
pale foreheads throbbed,
small steps

returning uphill
fell
into careless unison,

something
on those short journeys
between worlds

conjured
sisterhood
from unshared histories,

separate blood,
incomparable desires
after summer

when the lane
was high with new grass
and each girl

had her own dream
to swim
in the greenness.

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Annemarie completed an M. Phil in Creative Writing at the Oscar Wilde Centre, Trinity College Dublin. Her poems have been published widely in Ireland and the UK and have appeared in Poetry Ireland Review, Stinging Fly, The SHOP, The London Magazine, Agenda Magazine and The Morning Star. In 2011, she was short-listed for the UK Erbacce Poetry Prize. Annemarie lives in Dublin and is currently completing her first poetry collection. She is contactable at Creativeceardlann@gmail.com