Two Poems by Jeanna Ní Ríordáin

Upward Mobility

In Imperial China, matchmakers did not ask

About a woman’s face, temperament or figure

 

Instead they asked how small her feet were. A 

Pretty face was just a gift – God-given, heaven-sent,

 

But dainty, three-inch feet took years of

Sacrifice, hard work & discipline                        

 

Young girls endured crippling pain

To marry up & please their poija

 

Because intact feet were ugly & showed laziness

& big-footed servant girls would never marry.

 

Crossing the Channel

They depart from beaches across Northern France,

The ports of Calais & La Côte d’Opale

 

Women, men & children, loaded like cheap cargo

Onto makeshift dinghies & unseaworthy vessels

 

Displaced & desperate, they risk their lives to rejoin

Their families & start again in a safe country

 

Many never make it & those who do are sent back or

Held in transit camps, placed on waiting lists for visas

 

Because there’s never any space & nobody can take

Them – the undocumented will always be unwanted.

 

Jeanna Ní Ríordáin is an Irish-language translator from West Cork, Ireland. Her work has been featured in Quarryman Literary Journal, Drawn to the Light Press, Cork Words 3, New Isles Press, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Swerve, Poetry in the Time of Coronavirus: The Anthology, Volume Two, pendemic.ie, Burrow, and Otherwise Engaged Literature and Arts Journal.