This week's Poem Of The Week, presented in association with Poetry Ireland, is Leaving London for Belfast by Mícheál McCann - read it below.
Leaving London for Belfast
- for Andrew
Rather be parochial
than suitcase-weary
and tie-bonded
and slow to laugh
and desperate to walk
in the opposite direction,
quickly...
Rather be coastal
than coughing,
slow in our going
than quiet with wanting.
Bless this plane, carrying
us over what we cannot swim.
My tired thighs
hear where we're going over the tannoy
and I can hear Jo Stafford
smiling as she sings. I missed you.
I hoak for a life vest under my seat
to realise I was wearing it all along.
About The Poet: Mícheál McCann is from Derry. His poems have appeared in Poetry Ireland Review, Banshee Lit. and elsewhere. His first pamphlet of poems, Safe Home, has just been published by Green Bottle Press.
