Maeve McKenna

Feast at The Empty Nest

In the absence of care and children

I’m making homemade chicken goujons 

as distractedly as I make love 

as diligently as I rotate bedsheets.

I’ve saved stale bread in the freezer 

and blitzed it. The egg that would rather 

be poached and a knob of soft butter 

will moisten the flesh. I’m adding 

a pinch of salt, although I’m not sure why 

and now crumbs are ready 

to coat two plump & sticky breasts. 

I cut them into equally imagined pieces, 

drop them in the mix, and leave them there.

Maeve McKenna lives in Sligo, Ireland. Her work has appeared in Poetry Ireland Review, Southward, Banshee, Rattle and Mslexia. She was a finalist in the Gregory O’Donoghue Poetry Competition 2024. She is the author of two pamphlets, A Dedication to Drowning and Body as a Home for this Darkness.