Nessa O’Mahony - Hall of Mirrors (Republic of Ireland)

from #BreakTheBias by Various

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about

Nessa O’Mahony was from Dublin. She won the National Women’s Poetry Competition and was shortlisted for the Patrick Kavanagh Prize and Hennessy Literature Awards. She is the recipient of three literature bursaries from the Arts Council of Ireland. She has published five books of poetry – Bar Talk, (1999), Trapping a Ghost (2005), In Sight of Home (2009) and Her Father’s Daughter (2014). The Hollow Woman on the Island was published by Salmon Poetry in May 2019. She has co-edited several anthologies of poetry, including (with Paul Munden) Divining Dante, a celebration of the 700th anniversary of the Italian poet, Dante Aligheiri (Recent Work Press 2021) and (with Alan Hayes) Days of Clear Light. A Festschrift for Jessie Lendennie (Salmon Poetry 2021).

Details of her latest poetry collection, The Hollow Woman on the Island, can be found here: www.salmonpoetry.com/details.php?ID=509&a=281

lyrics

HOUSE OF MIRRORS

I’m now the old bag from No. 5,
deliverer of perfectly worded missiles
of passive aggression over parking spots.
Front-liner in this inter-generational war,
I look up from my probiotic grains
only to be curdled by a glance from
the go-to-work youngster from number 1a
who has to walk 50 yards further to her car.

I can’t see that she is me, 30 years ago;
can’t get beyond my envy
at that resting bitch face
of perfect potential.
She can’t see that I am her
if she waits long enough.
She won’t feel the time pass
in that quantum leap
till she’s looking out
of a suburban window
over gluten free oats.

And neither of us can see
a mother on her Cailleach chair,
immersed in photographs,
staring long enough to see figures move,
hear voices from the past,
which is present for her,
and for you and me,
if we just wait long enough.