John Dillon
Notebook
My grandmother’s legs are not pale and thin
because her dress is wide and blue. She doesn’t speak
but her black shoes are worn around the front
from sitting in linoleum rooms with flower patterns.
The sweater is big so it covers good –
Her sleeves are rolled up and the skin is sticky,
tired of waiting on the plastic arms
of the wheelchair. There aren’t any marks
behind her ears from the oxygen lines.
She sees me testing her wrist with the edge of my notebook,
prying back the bracelet, pressing on the blue spot
and leaving a little white scratch. She smiles.
Her hand is set like an old kite knot.
I take my pen and wedge it between her fingers,
bending low to peer in this last space – she paws at the page.
John Dillon is an aspiring poet from Harvard University. He has also studied at Queen’s University in Belfast under the tutelage of Medbh McGuckian. He is presently working on his thesis which compares the medieval text, Buile Shuibhne, with a sequence of poems from Heaney’s Station Island. After finishing his degree, he hopes to pursue a PhD.
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