‘Guide’ by Kerrie O’Brien

Your perfect white flat in East Berlin
had a bathroom with no lights
so you filled it with red candles
like a chapel
I had come shot, catatonic
hoping the snow would deaden the spread of it
sitting in the shower praying in the
half-light with those red flames blazing
like prophets like seers calling me back
in this city
where everything is still missing
where they’re still rebuilding
you had found love
like nothing before in your life
and it pulsed and shone all around you
like tiny yellow birds
all colour, joy, light
singing me back to the root
of the root I was learning
to see in the dark.

From issue #2: spring/summer 2016

About the Author
Kerrie O’Brien is a writer from Dublin. Her first collection of poetry, Illuminate, was published by Salmon in 2016. Visit www.kerrieobrien.com for more.