Maybe as a result of the sickness swamping the world
for a year I got James Joyce’s eyes.
It happened in a flash – one minute I was staring
at a pheasant in Moycullen, the next
at a rent receipt in Zurich and a box of unpaid bills,
scores of hats for Nora. I had to bend close
to the page for ‘Circe’. My sight got worse
and my eyes burned though by Paris, things
were looking up. I wrote home daily
for details and information on Connemara,
who owned such and such a field and exactly,
how many cows were in the small haggard,
who had gone away on the bád bán
who died and how many were left, if any.
I wrote to Stannie and Dear Miss Weaver
for money, then to my aunt about the boats:
who built them and their sail plans and dimensions.
I did it all by letter from Paris, Zurich, Trieste.
For The Wandering Rocks, seventeen letters
for their exact co-ordinates on June 16th 1904.
There I stayed, out of reach of Facebook
though I googled, tempted by the fabulous digressions,
worried that the Wake was stretching to infinity and back.
Now I have my own eyes again but in one
the left, a small island sometimes rises.
Mary O’Malley’s most recent collection is Gaudent Angeli (Carcanet)
for a year I got James Joyce’s eyes.
It happened in a flash – one minute I was staring
at a pheasant in Moycullen, the next
at a rent receipt in Zurich and a box of unpaid bills,
scores of hats for Nora. I had to bend close
to the page for ‘Circe’. My sight got worse
and my eyes burned though by Paris, things
were looking up. I wrote home daily
for details and information on Connemara,
who owned such and such a field and exactly,
how many cows were in the small haggard,
who had gone away on the bád bán
who died and how many were left, if any.
I wrote to Stannie and Dear Miss Weaver
for money, then to my aunt about the boats:
who built them and their sail plans and dimensions.
I did it all by letter from Paris, Zurich, Trieste.
For The Wandering Rocks, seventeen letters
for their exact co-ordinates on June 16th 1904.
There I stayed, out of reach of Facebook
though I googled, tempted by the fabulous digressions,
worried that the Wake was stretching to infinity and back.
Now I have my own eyes again but in one
the left, a small island sometimes rises.
Mary O’Malley’s most recent collection is Gaudent Angeli (Carcanet)
