Falling Minutes

One of Two Noel Conneely Poems Featured in The Southeast Review Volume 27.1

Seeing your minutes fall like Sitting Bull saw
the cavalry in his dream and unable to face
each day like a Big Horn you will always lose,
you make for the cross which is now a roundabout
and you keep circling trying to remember left
from right and those with dogs are walking them
and even those who never water their geraniums
expect to be saved and the priest’s wife who
doesn’t know what sin is walks with her bald son
whose scalp is like a map of Germany before
the war and her eyes and tongue struggle with
accent and she cannot now win back old friends
who have fallen into the crevices of her longing
and even a grin from him could save her
but all she gets is a serious look like he was
with her in the old brigade where all you had
to do to be part of the band was to rattle
your bones and she begins to think she will
puncture his ears if she ever survives him.

Noel Conneely has had poems in Chelsea, Willow Review, The Coe Review and other publications in Ireland, England, and the U.K. He works as a teacher in Dublin.