Serenade

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Longlisted for the Write about Walking A/way competition 2023


Someone has replaced the vape and takeaway debris that loitered here when I last walked this way with a trail of jasmine flowers, skyfall lucidae on sun-bleached asphalt.

At the canal, lovers on the towpath weave through willow fronds sure as a cleat hitch.

A woman with proper running shoes

shares a metre with her lurcher— their loose-ankle skip wisps above the path like hovercraft.

That one couple waiting at the school gate,

a generation older than the rest, the way he tucks her hair, bends to kiss, like she has nectar only he can siphon.

And a girl, 6 or 7, calls out

over some back garden wall, Hello, Hello, You hear me?.... to all of us or none.


Eilín de Paor

Eilín de Paor

Eilín de Paor lives in Dublin, Ireland. Alongside poetry, she works in services for people with disabilities and is studying towards a PhD in that field. Her poems have appeared in The Stony Thursday Book, Banshee, Skylight 47, The Frogmore Papers, 14, Ab...

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Walking Event SWS23
Sound Walk Stories Sunday: ‘Write About Walking A/way’ showcase

2023-09-24 15:30

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