Jane Kirwan’s poems have appeared in various magazines in Britain, Ireland and the Czech Republic. Her poetry collections Stealing the Eiffel Tower, 1997, and The Man Who Sold Mirrors, 2003, were published by Rockingham Press. She won an England Arts Council Writers Award in 2002 and has read at poetry festivals including Ledbury, Den Poezie in Prague and Valtice. Second Exile, a poem and prose ‘project’ completed with her partner – her poems alongside his prose memoir as a political prisoner and exile – was published by Rockingham 2010 and as Druhý Exil by Novela Bohemica, 2011.

 

Instrumental – In the Garden

She unpacks – prepositions
strewn across the duvet.
He murmurs all he has in mind
is wine, bread, perhaps a
gentle chat. Fine, she says,
let’s take a different case.
I’m on top, you’re locative,
by your side, possessed.
I have to wait to see if
you’re with me or without.
But, he says, by the end
you know. Ignore accusative.
Impossible. Should I stay,
make a habit of it or
get it over with once and
for all. You even fiddle
with my name. I never
know if I am coming
or going. Or recognise
myself when I am there.
Where, he asks? Exactly.
I linger outside the house
while you are right inside.
You insist on being on
the garden. Flat out on
the lawn, nose stuffed
with pollen. So what do
you want? I want you in.

The Man Who Sold Mirrors (Rockingham 2003)