Maurice Devitt

Winner of the 2015 Trocaire/Poetry Ireland Competition, he was runner-up or shortlisted in Listowel, Cuirt, Patrick Kavanagh, Interpreter’s House and Cork literary Review. He is a poet of international breadth, having had poems published in the UK, US, India, Romania, Australia and Mexico, and representing Ireland at the Berryman Conference in Minneapolis, and at the Poets in Transylvania Festival.  He is also the curator of the Irish Centre for Poetry Studies site, a founder member of the Hibernian Writers’ Group and has a debut collection upcoming from Doire Press in 2018.

 

The Consolations of Wool

I can still remember how I felt

when I saw you in the window of Ecru,

a chunky knit in red and green,

and now my companion for thirty years.

 

Parties and night-clubs, hill-walks

and DIY, you have stood by me,

never objecting to being dragged out

at short notice, and never one to disclose

 

the secrets we shared, even when,

lately, friends expressed surprise

at a rare appearance, and I interjected,

tugging self-consciously at a sleeve,

 

that you had shrunk and were no longer

fit for purpose. You have always been happy

with a prime position in the second drawer,

there to be the willing bedfellow

 

of other styles and colours passing through,

and never a blemish, save for the pulled stitch

under the arm, nicked on barbed wire

up at Crone Wood, but, as I grow older, I worry

 

who will look after you when I’m gone

and will you mind going out alone after dark.

 

© 2018 Maurice Devitt