Scrittura Magazine
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Meet Cute Caitlin Gillespie They met at a London dance hall a 1950’s swirl a quartet of drinks and laughter a treacle sepia whirl perfumed in movement like glistening cogs ‘Welcome’ at the door not ‘No Blacks, No Dogs, No Paddy’s’ the floral Mayo skirts in fashion meeting Black Irish passion suited and booted borne of Donegal. In the back of a pandemonium of minds‘It will not be long love, till your wedding day, how softly I watched her move here and move there. As the sun moves in the evening, she moves through the fair.’ My Grandmother filled her bedroom with statues of Mary they wore Lourdes blue sat alongside the photographs of all those she loved after she was gone it remained unchanged until my grandfather was gone it remained unchanged. All that time he slept in that room with the jewelry the fur coats the lipstick the Mary’s he bought her the receipts and dust remnants of a faerie blowing from two dreams. I would peep inside the bedroom North London light bouncing from the crystal on her dressing table my reflection in her mirror now with breasts the curve in my waist to my hips in the mirror in which she once undressed waiting until someone called my name breeze stirring lace remembering fingering her bed spread. In the back of my mind her song for me ‘Lula, lula lula. Hush now don’t ye cry, lula lula lula. It’s an Irish lullaby.’
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