One Year Later
By Aoife Mannix

It is the end of Christmas,
the door closes with a hollow snap.
Seeing the book I would have bought you,
my memory plays patience and loses.
I am walking in a plastic forest.
The whisper of Paris shrinks me.
The maps slaughtered on the table.
I pin myself down,
swallowed raw and unprotesting.
The best laid plans bite back.
Even now none of it adds up.
I count the sleepless nights
on a chain around my neck.
Where does all that love go?

I went running in the ocean,
cart wheeling through the snow.
I splashed myself with sunsets.
Only on aeroplanes do I feel safe,
curled in a styrofoam blanket.
The clouds underneath my feet
seem solid enough.
The year unwinds
in all it’s greys and blacks.
Thousands and thousands of miles
I poured down my throat,
and still I am in that room with you.
The frozen laughter
of the year turning it’s back.
Your skin worn through,
your eyes the last time I ever saw green.
Something in my heart stopped then,
and now.

Aoife Mannix was born in Stockholm of Irish parents. She grew up in Dublin and New York, and currently lives in London. Her poetry is a bittersweet look at the chaos of life and love. She celebrates the confusion of the world we live in, finding humour and hope in the power of words shared.

Her poetry has been published in the anthologies Short Fuse: The Global Anthology of New Fusion Poetry, In Our Own Words and Gargoyle as well as several magazines including Global Tapestry Journal, Inclement, Cadenza, The
Affectionate Punch, Poetry Nottingham International, Voice & Verse, Breathe, Fan The Flames, The Black Rose, The New Writer, First Time, and in the e-zines Poetic Express and Snakeskin. Her poetry has also been broadcast on BBC Radio 4, London Live, and the BBC World Service. She is currently the Farrago London Slam! champion. In 1998 she was awarded first prize in the Dr Marten's New Writers Competition. Places she has performed include the Edinburgh Festival, the ICA, the Tabernacle, the Poetry Place, and the Battersea Arts Centre.