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CONTENTS

Title Page

Dedication

Naming It

Acts of Faith

Eeps

Come Live with Me

Without Me

For Stuart who Accidentally Obtained a Job in the Civil Service

Donegal

Festival Time

Games

Brinkwomanship

Here

The Amazing, Disappearing

The Second Mrs de Winter

Without Me

Without Me

The Miracle of F6/18

Without Me

On the Third Floor of the Royal Infirmary

When I was Sixteen I met Seamus Heaney

My Dream Mentor

Snow

Nocturne

Without Me

What You Get

Two Crossings

Doyne

Pet Deaths

A Pause

It’s a Wonderful Life

Bridges

bed poem

Perl Poem

Granite

The Franklin’s Tale

April, 7 p.m.

The Myth of Tea Boy

The Morning after Ruth’s Going-away Party

Holland

The Magician

Satis House

Boys

The Man with the Hatchet

For Lily Allen

It’s a Wonderful Life

The Furthest Distances I’ve Travelled

26

By My Skin

Mangles

These Days

Acknowledgements

Copyright

These Days

Leontia Flynn

This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

For Karen O’Reilly

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Some of these poems have originally appeared in Envoi, Fortnight, The Irish University Review, London Magazine, New Soundings (Blackstaff), Poetry Ireland Review, Product, Proof, The Shop and Staying Alive (Bloodaxe).

Acknowledgements are due to The Arts Council of Northern Ireland for a bursary in 2000 – which allowed me to purchase my computer – as well as, very particularly, to Belfast City Council for funding a residency at Annaghmakkerig in 2001, and to the British Council in Belfast for sending me to Budapest in 2003. I also have to thank my friends and family – and Lawrence Warnett for writing the code for ‘Perl Poem’.

NAMING IT

Five years out of school and preachy

with booklearning, it is good to be discovered

as a marauding child.

To think the gloomiest most baffled

misadventures might lead so suddenly

to a clearing – as when a friend

taking me to her well-stocked fridge says:

look

this is an avocado and this

is an aubergine.

ACTS OF FAITH

On my 24th birthday

my lungs close over, tight as a baby’s fist

round its first rattle.

It might be the Holy Ghost,

the disc of light skittering on the ceiling