Poetry

Eve

You are almost a stranger,
Holy Mother,
and I am still licking the tart taste of apple
from my fingers as we traipse

the streets of Rome.
You readdress my self-indulgent fall
while perched on a museum bench;
we bury each milestone

inside the convoluted map. Cobbled alleys
narrow our impulses to mere hunger,
thirst. My legs are stronger but together
we choose

to emerge from this transported city into sunlight
with our shadows blurred together in the spaces between monuments.

Catriona McLean