My Thighs are Cold
My thighs are cold.
As is the pucked sag of my belly,
a cool appendage hanging like
a symbiotic twin from my waist,
with two sons-worth of skin stretch.
My fingers are cold.
As are my toes, their ten plus ten
equalling twenty long digits
that grapple at warmth with
a cadaver's marblous grip.
Until my morning bed.
There, heat oozes like piety
to every cranny, making
a smug bitch of me, a pup
languishing in self-made heat.
.
by Nuala Ní Chonchúir
from Tattoo : Tatú
publisher Arlen House, Galway, 2007
translation by author