for feeding • Monica Nunan

The sun’s breath carries memories.

Sweetgrass and baked cement.

From the lip of your shirt,

up, up, up to the crook of your jaw.

The musk of your sweat - a warm, animal’s perfume.

Visions ebb,

and spirits flow.

The pit of a stomach is pulled by the tides.

What do you have to lose?

Over our big baby heads,

Furrow a brow of storm clouds.

Oh, what a shame!

I’m losing the current of momma’s firm grip

And daddy’s absent hand.

The skin of our back turned sun scarlet.

The still-warm grass.

The world between two strange hands held, together.

A forgotten moment might never change.

Something’s coming...

Hold still what you can.

Monica Nunan (she/her) is a Portland-based writer and poet who began scribbling down poems and short stories in the margins of her school notebooks. Following her family's emigration to the US from Ireland, Monica turned to writing to express her identity as an immigrant and Irish ex-pat, including her experiences of loneliness, post-colonial diaspora, and familial loss. With a keen ear for rhythm and a passion for language, Monica's writing gives voice to a swirling and churning inner world full of little moments and bigger feelings.