2004
Dream as Eilís Ní Fhlannagáin
Artefact: Article, ‘Never ask permission: How two trans women ran a legendary underground surgical clinic in a rural tractor barn’, written by Io Dodds, Independent, 03 July, 2022.
Dark and dirty dream
Mud on the tiles
Organs in a plastic cup
And geese screeching
Snatches like this
Torchlight snapping off and on again
Illuminating time in a circular glare
Not nightmares
(Off)
Pulsating visions
(On)
Chrissy drinking
That's Olympia
Hair pushed up under a trucker’s cap
Ass on the sidewalk
Grin reflecting back
At the punchline
Night flight
Small plane rattling
Over an island drowning in mist
Hazy someone strapped in next to her, wishes
Happy Birthday
Fifty, that’s quite an age
Blinks
The image won’t go
Fliptop table, pleather headrest
Interstellar blue
Target-practice can
Spirals over
Dropping out of the air
Force sucking it down to the heavy trunk
Bullet pulling back, back
Up through time
Right into the ‘B’ of the shot
Unreleasing, then
Trigger finger unsqueezing
Cartoons on
Volume loud
TV geese screeching now
Flickering to themselves on the set in the corner
No audience
Patient zonked out on the brown stretched couch
She hates cartoons
Even her dreamself knows this
Is striding through to claim her mac-and-cheese
Heat congealing on the counter
Tobacco smoke grabbing along with her
Catching up
Marking her way
From the wet path
Into the dark kitchen
She’s tiling
Running electricity in
Insisting to Willow
We’re a clever people
This one keeps replaying
On, off
A glitch in the code
She’s applying thinset
A clever people
Willow isn’t disagreeing
Nodding, sometimes
Measuring up the concrete for the window
Staring out through the hole
At leaves that hang in the damp air
Always
After the words leave her mouth
There is the catch of something else forming
Not articulated yet
How do you —
Her brain asking
Wanting to
Code getting in the way
She’s cracking open a new packet of white porcelain
How do you —
Un- …
Un-something
...
No
It’s gone
Mud on the tiles
Organs in a plastic cup
And geese screeching
Snatches like this
Torchlight snapping off and on again
Illuminating time in a circular glare
Not nightmares
(Off)
Pulsating visions
(On)
Chrissy drinking
That's Olympia
Hair pushed up under a trucker’s cap
Ass on the sidewalk
Grin reflecting back
At the punchline
Night flight
Small plane rattling
Over an island drowning in mist
Hazy someone strapped in next to her, wishes
Happy Birthday
Fifty, that’s quite an age
Blinks
The image won’t go
Fliptop table, pleather headrest
Interstellar blue
Target-practice can
Spirals over
Dropping out of the air
Force sucking it down to the heavy trunk
Bullet pulling back, back
Up through time
Right into the ‘B’ of the shot
Unreleasing, then
Trigger finger unsqueezing
Cartoons on
Volume loud
TV geese screeching now
Flickering to themselves on the set in the corner
No audience
Patient zonked out on the brown stretched couch
She hates cartoons
Even her dreamself knows this
Is striding through to claim her mac-and-cheese
Heat congealing on the counter
Tobacco smoke grabbing along with her
Catching up
Marking her way
From the wet path
Into the dark kitchen
She’s tiling
Running electricity in
Insisting to Willow
We’re a clever people
This one keeps replaying
On, off
A glitch in the code
She’s applying thinset
A clever people
Willow isn’t disagreeing
Nodding, sometimes
Measuring up the concrete for the window
Staring out through the hole
At leaves that hang in the damp air
Always
After the words leave her mouth
There is the catch of something else forming
Not articulated yet
How do you —
Her brain asking
Wanting to
Code getting in the way
She’s cracking open a new packet of white porcelain
How do you —
Un- …
Un-something
...
No
It’s gone