A Dublin Girl

A woman
girl at gate eighteen
stops
stands stock still
to the spot
rooted

Half her face
pale
bleached white in
the New Year dawn
is turned toward me
the rest concealed
by light
arriving only in
straight lines

Half a smile is flickering
lost or something in between
a moment that she caught
herself aware

Her purse
there
on the worn
hard stretch of grey
blue carpet
threadbare and harsh
fallen out
down of care

Here, she bends
a doe at feed
gathering seeds
from a split feed packet
a farmer tends
as a dancer
capoeira
splits his sequence
piece by
piecemeal beads and quartz
are added, pushed
not forced
into sheet mosaic
pattern stumbles
made by drunks
though innocence holds
him/he/her/they
she is debunked
and ungraceful
graceful
stepped out
for a second

Her second grab and curse
belies a humour
fond of books
family, sisters
with children
fantasy wealth
balanced with new pastures
leather and
kids of her own
but not yet

A woman
girl at gate eighteen
stops
retrieving her dropped purse
she carries on
unabashed
resumed
supreme

J. x