Cottage at Ballintemple - Ashling Meehan-Fanning

poem read by Timothy Arliss OBrien

Cottage at Ballintemple
Ashling Meehan-Fanning

Cracked tile. Peeling wallpaper

warped by rain and damp,

St. Brigid’s cross above the doorway,

a fire kept by cold, thin-veined hands.

An abandoned kettle left in the sink,

milk curdled, tea bags coiled around the drain.

The back room is colder than the front,

wind whispers through cracks in the stone.

There’s a horse buried in the field out back,

in the fields that bank the River Moy.

I followed a dog through the muck once,

got lost in woods knit into the land.

A fairy ring nestled inside, white-capped mushrooms,

stalk straight, thin white skin glistening in morning dew.

An auld fella haunts the land, my cousin tells me,

Keeps the horses up at night. Back bent, bandy-legged,

a bloodless face, and the bluest, bright eyes.

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Ashling Meehan-Fanning is a poet based in Wisconsin whose work often includes themes of magic,

ancestry, and the American Midwest. She spends a lot of time thinking about ghosts and trees.
poemsbyashling.com