poetry pRO     Alison Lock
Translation Café 238, interview p56

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featured poet – Jo Roach

Ghost in the Machine

Jack Davis in overalls, wearing a cap
after his day job as a brickie, repairs
secondhand bikes, to earn extra
to pay the mortgage on the house he painted
green, white and yellow, at the time of ads
in corner shops, ‘Rooms to let, no blacks no irish’.
In the box room of number sixteen, spare wheels
hang from six inch nails, the floor a shingle
of nuts and bolts, the smell of three-in-one oil
heavy as khaki. Hands fretted from wire wool
he polishes aluminium rims to silver, removes
links from the chain until it fits. His memory
full of the sea, fine tunes into each wave
as if it were the one that broke when he left
a country where there are no words for yes and no.
Sue-Sue Lambert shopping in Dunlaoghaire
meets one of the Davises and asks,
“ Is Jack not after coming home? ”
 

Jo Roach

previously published in Poetry Wales and Dancing at the Crossroads

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