‘When the Queen falls in love’ by Ingrid Casey

the air tastes like bronze. A slow procession
of soft wool ties, red, greet her along the tracks
under Arts et Métiers. Herein lies the entire history
of gold, dancing in her irises. Her mouth teems with flakes,
both Paleolithic caves and Celtic tiger-fish. Some talked about
Havilah and this is where the split occurs; not Eden, but a place
elevated, monetized. Chatham Row on Saturdays and episcopal
ceilings seal greed to her mouth like minted sugar, heaven must
be material, engineered. Bodies nor art gifts, but more a form of
showing politics, moving, melodious sabrage release crescendo
diminuendo streams, liquid gold, gaseous arabesque at pianos. When
the queen realises that God is a woman, she is listening to Ariana Grande
and recalling maple tapping on Wisconsin trees as a child, time travelling
with words, books. Pedunculate under the sloop and weft of branches, time
bends to desire; it is not a forest, but fields of gold in Tipperary, or years later,
buying quail’s eggs to appease a visiting Russian child. Or Rome, swimming
under orange groves on hills, kissing saxophony from where two oceans meet
with canticles, or again in amber and castles on the crusts of pastries that are the
Crimea-to-Baltic, the route of the palette, the platelets roving. Even while at war,
the queen drinks affogato, bestows pineapples. And this is breaking the rules,
Eden via fat rolls, ovaries. There is nothing linear about one caesura, one volta.
The queen is oíbnius, gladness. Shibboleths tumble, roll off the queen’s roof.
She puts on Maria Callas, to greet storms; feels just like a chalice, a brooch.
Walking to grocery shops, she is struck down by a sky-falling object. It’s a
torque, straight from Kildare street, wheeling its iridescent way onto her clavicle.
It feels like the invention of blue; the coffee-goers and GAA parents are filled with
wonder. She is a four month old foetus, festooned, she is her own cellular life, in the
womb of her grandmother, she is the function and role of plasma, the largest
component of all the blood, the currency in, on, around, over, under the earth.

From issue #8: spring/summer 2019

About the Author
Ingrid Casey is a poet, parent, artist and activist. Her debut collection, Mandible (the Onslaught Press, 2018) has been described by Jessica Traynor as a ‘vital addition to Irish poetry’. In 2018 she produced Through the Cracks, a groundbreaking short documentary on families living in homeless accommodation.