Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin

• You will be scattered like wreckage, /

  The pieces every one a different shape /

  Will spin and lodge in the hearts /

  Of all who love you.'


  Death and Engines, parts of you will live on in the hearts of those who love you
• You will find yourself alone /

  Accelerating down a blind /

  Alley, too late to stop'


  Death and Engines, 'You' pronoun forces us to confront and accept the unenviability of our own death
• These will fail you some time.'


  Death and Engines, The futility of celebration as death will catch up to you anyway
• A man with a bloody face /

  Sitting up in bed, conversing cheerfully

  Through cut lips'


  Death and Engines, image of survivor
• Cornered in the angle where /

  Time and life like a knife and fork

  Cross, and the lifeline in your palm /

  Breaks'


  Death and Engines, Simile for the times in life where we cross death
• The cold of metal wings is contagious: /

  Soon you will need wings of your own, '


  Death and Engines, Religious imagery
• No sound came over /

  The loudspeakers, except the sighs /

  Of the lonely pilot.'


  Death and Engines, there is a human with emotions controlling the vehicle and holding the lives of passengers
• The snow-white runways in the dark'


  Death and Engines, Image of snowed on runway
• The back half of a plane, black /

  On the snow, nobody near it, /

  Tubular, burnt-out and frozen.'


  Death and Engines, image of the plane wreckage
• a could over my time'


  Translation, a stain on Irish society that she saw happen
• A parasite that grew in me. that spell /

  Lifted.'


  Translation, the repression of the term 'fallen women' is lifted and purged
• Searching for their parents, their names. /

  The edges of word grinding against nature.'


  Translation, the names of the girl's and their lives being washed from history
• Searching for their parents' 'sharp as an infants cry'


  Translation, Representing their helplessness, youth and life that was tripped away from them
• Assist them now.'


  Translation, asking for the publics aid in remembering these women
• danced' and 'giggled'


  Translation, the girls were forbidden to talk despite their personalities
• White light blinded and bleached out'


  Translation, the women were confined in terrible conditions
• The soil frayed and sifted evens the score'


  Translation, The reburial of the bodies are some form of recognition and retribution against the state
• crescent'


  Street, there is femininity found in the girl despite the violent power she is introduced as having
• And the stairs were brushed and clean, /

  Her shoes paired on the bottom step,

  Each tread raked with the red crescent /

  Her bare heels left, fading to faintest at the top.'


  Street, The girl's feet leaving a bloody trail up the stairs
• A door stood half-open'


  Street, inviting quality for the man to welcome himself into the house
• One day he followed her'


  Street, insinuations he has been observing her for some time
• the dark shining drops on the paving-stones'


  Street, a trail for the man to follow filled with temptation
• Dangling a knife on a ring at her belt'


  Street, insinuating that she has power with this instrument of harm/protection
• white trousers' 'dark shining drops'


  Street, Contrast between the white trousers and red blood
• He fell in love with the butcher's daughter /

  When he saw her passing by in her white trousers /

  Dangling a knife on a ring at her belt.'


  Street, The man's fascination, desire, being drawn to violence
• This is the place of their presence: in the tree, in the air'


  The Bend in the Road, Final line, a microcosm of a time when everyone was alive and together
• sealed by sickeness'


  The Bend in the Road, Stanza 3, end of line 6
• the absences, /

  The faces never long from thought, /

  The bodies alive then and the airy space they took up'


  The Bend in the Road, Stanza 3, people who passed's absence from the physical world and moving into the minds of loved ones.
• and the bend /

  In the road is as silent as ever it was on that day.'


  The Bend in the Road, Stanza 2, the memories encapsulates the place in a world without time
• You are taller... The tree is taller, the house is quite covered in /

  With green creeper'


  The Bend in the Road, Stanza 2, time has passed
• Easily, while nothing moved. Then he was better.'


  The Bend in the Road, Stanza 1, Final line
• This is the place where the child /

  Felt sick in the car and they pulled over'


  The Bend in the Road, Opening lines