You'll never walk alone by Anne Casey

             Tim Vrtiska CC



​You'll never walk alone


The grandmother ever at my shoulder
What harm another little nub of butter?
A pinch of sage would lift the whole thing

Navigating the gaps as nimbly now as she did
in her dimly-lit kitchen with its three trip-up steps to sprinkle and stir
her jealous Jack Russell and me always lapping at her feet

My grandfather appearing out of thin air, his fine white hair backlit
a smear of engine grease across his forehead
cutting through the seasoned haze with its air of industry

My mother and her Irish twin hovering together
inseparable after birth, throughout their lives
between death and life, and forever after

Their baby sister borne between them
whose tiny feet never touched the ground
for as long as they both had lived

In every sunset, a swell of light to lift
you away out of the falling day
and carry you through the dark

These ghosts I wear
who bear
me up


‘You'll never walk alone’ was first published in The Same Issue 15.4 in November 2018. This poem was also published in FemAsia Magazine in April 2019. It was subsequently published in out of emptied cups poetry collection (Salmon Poetry 2019).

Originally from the west of Ireland, Anne Casey is a Sydney-based writer/editor and author of two poetry collections--where the lost things go (Salmon Poetry 2017) and out of emptied cups (Salmon Poetry 2019). Anne has worked for 30 years as a journalist, magazine editor, media communications director and legal author. Her writing and poetry rank in The Irish Times newpaper’s ‘Most-Read’ and are widely published internationally--The Irish Times, Entropy, apt, Murmur House, Quiddity, Barzakh, FourXFour (Poetry Northern Ireland), Cordite, The Canberra Times, Verity La and Plumwood Mountain among others. Anne’s poetry has won/shortlisted for awards in Ireland, Northern Ireland, the USA, the UK, Hong Kong, Canada and Australia. She is Senior Poetry Editor of Other Terrain Journal and Backstory Journal (Swinburne University, Melbourne) and a member of several literary editorial boards. 

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