Poems

Margaret Galvin

Female Admissions  

The icy stab of hurt impails,
we tremble with old shudders.

Outside cherry trees bloom
mocking this torment
with their summer dress mimicry.

Morning gathers –
unreal with clinical clamour.
We are frozen as glaciers,
no one charts the cold contours
of this geography.
The boulder of despair shifts
under the skin.
Greeting cards scoff
with their ordinary stability.

Numbly we move
through the scandalous corridors
of human brokenness.
Each guarding
the private catalogue
of horrors.

Dead cigarettes float in soapy slime,
we wash our pale unknowing faces.

Growing to my Own Size

The room changed-
but not you.
The place changed-
but not you.
Each week I climb
your stairs.

Time passes swiftly.
Have I learned
within your room.
Pictures so familiar
Books a constant
mirror, of the work
being done.
Friendly tones of
Freud and Jung.
All I say –
in the hours,
I have grown,
in stature,
even to myself.
The gates widen,
Mazes reveal
shady dealings.

I continue to
survive.
And bring gratitude. I will’ to grow,
to stay with you.
Until I am myself.