April is National Poetry Month, and so in honor, here’s a poem I would like to share from Irish poet Mebdh McGuckian, an amazing writer whose work you sense more than understand in the conventional sense of “knowing”:

LEMON WITH WHITE JUG

The ghost island passes us by,
Its Greek name, meaning watchful,
Like a cloud bent back upon itself
Blown smooth by the wind.

Its village, furrowed with cold,
Lays a bed of colour
In the unaccepted space between
Your upper eyelid and eyebrow-

Doors of lawless scarlet,
A purple that can be tied.
Now a dream begins to value
The fretwork of the small red crowd

To its nth foundation, the cool,
Bleached mood in the languish
Of your neck,the gospel-net
Fletching of your arms.

While love and its technologies
Drinks the working day from your palms.

Ah, Medbh. You are amazing. If you liked her work and want to find out more about her, start with this great interview in The Argotist.