Reunion

Cornelian, brown; Columban, blue;
Marian, red; Patrician, green;
these four houses we walked through
in uniforms of gaberdine.
This new experiment, co-ed,
had bad boys twanging our bra straps;
’70s posters showed sunsets
from glorious Technicolour snaps,
and told us to make lemonade
when life served up that bitter fruit.
But her drink’s stronger, our classmate,
to dull her losses and disputes.
She drives out to the coastal shelf,
settles her boy and then herself.

Dubliner Maeve O’Sullivan’s work has been widely published and anthologised for twenty years. Her collections  poetry (Vocal Chords, 2014), are from Alba Publishing. 

Published in the 2014 collection Vocal Chords (from Alba Publishing).

Twitter address @maeveos