ARRIVING 

I tell her that the wine stain 
    on the back of her thigh 
looks like Ireland, that the isle 
    of white in the north is 
Lough Neagh, and while I kiss 
    the long way from there 
to her buttocks I’m thinking 
    about Magherafelt, the town 
my grandfather left years ago 
    in the hope of finding 
something as good, I’m thinking, 
    as this beautiful ass. 
I touch my lips to it gently, the way 
    I like to think of him, 
arriving in the Port of Philadelphia, 
    getting down on his knees 
and kissing his dream come true. 

JESUS, MARY, and MICHAEL J. QUILL 

My grandmother would evoke 
the Trinity that held our union 

home together, kept 
her husband and son working, 

the buses and trains running. 
God bless him, she’d say, 

and that’s all that was said 
when ever the Kerryman’s brogue 

reached out from the old Philco 
in the corner of the living room. 

The night the workers were locked in 
by the bosses at the Towne plant 

on Lancaster Avenue, I helped her 
make po’ boys from leftovers. 

She stole a couple packs 
of my grandfather’s Pall Malls 

from the carton on top of the refrigerator, 
and the two of us went to the long hilly lawn 

where wives and children stood in the dark 
cold at the high cyclone fence touching 

the hands of their men, the cheeks, and we 
passed out the sandwiches and cigarettes. 

I can still see the faces of those workers, 
and hear their voices, and the words 

of the Our Father we prayed again 
and again on the long drive home. 

Page 3

© Copyright Louis McKee.
 All Rights Reserved by Author.