Stanzas: Monthly Chapbooks March 2015: Identity | Page 10

Fig
Nina O’Donovan
It’s the place in you that needs a name
but you’re
an absolute beginner at naming things.
Centred in this pathos, I’ve never known
whether to create stillness or bitter passion.
In this, there is a sacrifice,
something to see through to the end.
The openness I sometimes extract
can break me down.
Is it better
to find a way to say it?
Would it be better to hang for it
or to forget
how the fig is fertilised?
In its sweetness,
to forget
the distaste of undermining friendship.
I have stretched myself into the past.
I have stretched my body
to see the places it could end.
Vein bubbles
from where it started,
wet bloodgasps;
sorry smear of a poem

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