‘Massage’ by Molly Twomey
She switches on the CD and soaks her fingers in rapeseed oil. He removes his shirt and lays on the table. She dims the lights. Applying pressure to his sacral, her hips move to the motion of her shoulders. She closes her eyes, imagines kneading dough for her two boys, their gapped smiles, runny noses.
The man grunts and she is back. She moves up to his lungs and presses in, like he is a bottle of ketchup. He wheezes as she compresses. She wants to squeeze until he can no longer breathe, wants his organs to come out his lips. She will hang them in her hostel like ornaments. He slaps her thigh as if to say, that’s enough. And she returns to this man, the clock on the wall, the life she was told to run towards.
From issue #9: autumn/winter 2019
About the Author
Molly Twomey holds an MA in Creative Writing from UCC and has been published by Poetry Ireland, educate.ie, The Irish Times, Crannóg, and elsewhere. She won the Padraic Colum Poetry Prize in 2019 and has been selected for Words Ireland’s National Mentoring Programme 2020.
