From the safety of the white room, O sees and hears Niamh, and
feels the shallow sobs that shake her little body; breath is paper-thin, eyes
bursting white, and angry, purple knots rise to her throat; she is cursed:
trapped within a tree; he feels the measure of her prison, hard wood on soft
feet; arches, bends his knee; genu-flects; bone-crushing weight on his chest; and the dumb
pressure of the twisted crown on his temples; and he feels white horror of death in a
hospital toilet; convulsing, vaulted rib-cage, splayed, open palms, nailed by pain to a bedroom
floor; surgical gloves separate beating hearts; and, hand to
mouth in horror (breathless imminence of release), he remembers:
the softness of your bubble cheek, as
your tiny vanilla mouth kisses mine; lit from within, you are my waxy-yellow,
alien sister; a red corona flares around the globes of your fingers, as they
reach to touch my small balloon white face; tiny swimmers embrace, treading water; the
only daughter falls beneath, drowns to let me live; once we were one; now I am
torn in two […]
… O sees the face they
made in the hairdressers’ mirror, in the school photographs: unsatisfactory paper-over, mute white scream of separation; approximation of normal, acid mask of adjustment;
something transitional, incomplete; somewhere near the border of tears […]
