Helen Nancy Meneilly

ways to die

 
perched on the edge
of the bath.
bruised heart
beating against
porcelain. the tub
fills. the world outside
is ending.

trees stare in. fish spines
picked clean.
your phone fills
with the dead. mothers
ushering babies
out of the ether
straight into the earth.

you scroll. graves
fill. hospitals are
buried. families pray
by roadsides. under
rubble. under
sunlight cleaving
white wounds
through cloud.

you shut the taps off.
you make coffee.

Helen Nancy Meneilly is an Irish poet and MA student. Recently highly commended in the 2022 Hastings Book Festival Poetry Competition, her work has also appeared in The Orchards Poetry Journal, Gyroscope Review, The Metaworker, and others.