Green is the Colour of Blood  

 

They wash the sins of the father with the tears of innocence

My blood is green 

Green as the fields holding the ghosts of memory

 

My face fights to be seen with fresh eyes

But my mother always wins

Her womb is my prison

I drink her pain through the cord

Connecting me to her world

She tastes of whisky and cigarettes 

 

 

Mothers are not always angels

Sometimes they are demons

I imagine Mother was once an angel

Sadly, the demons were too strong

I know now that when an angel is forced to mate with the devil, monsters are born

 

They hold the host’s head beneath water 

And hide under children’s beds

Mother sees nothing

She’s not even there

She drowned her heart in a bottle

A long time ago

 

I watch her suckle the cigarette 

Her Irish eyes roam her lost youth

Searching for answers

As she bathes in regret

 

There’ll be bile for dinner tonight

I will swallow it gratefully

After all, a poison chalice

Is better than nothing at all

 

When I am grown, I will stand in her childhood home

I will lick the grief from stone walls

Once my tongue is thick and sticky

The bees will come to feed themselves

And I will watch them fall. 

Clare Kinnaird, 2025.