Gathering Up all the Cellular Versions of Myself and Keeping Them Close

      What is beautiful is easily lost.
                  — The Altar, Charles Simic
i.

Apparently they proved that atoms 
	can exist in many places simultaneously
		but with a caveat — 
only when unobserved.

Perhaps the atoms are shy, like I can sometimes be,
	or easily distracted.
		Perhaps they lose their focus 
when under surveillance?

Though a person can get used to being in flux, in stasis,
	we cannot conceive of existing in two distinct places.
		The same, but slightly nuanced, versions of ourselves
reassessed each time.

But if an atom can do it, why can’t I?

It begs the question what is a body, anyway?
	A matrix which comprises seven octillion atoms to be inexact, 
		a palpable mass that wanders free, vulnerable
to any random violent act.

What would you remember of mine?

Would a chamber stuffed with semi-precious stones come to mind?
	An installation designed without proper respect for the elements.
		A vault of memory and observation,
of snap sideways looks and quizzical judgements.


ii.

Once this body was a vessel for growing a human, 
		
then twice, three times, more.

Once 		an arbiter of desire, 
Once 		a moderator of excess. 
Once I thought it inviolable.
Once I was a writer (forever, maybe, now).
Once a daughter. Still a daughter.
A partner, many times.
An ex-wife, once — always an ex-wife, so they say
	until he dies, of course;
for how can you be an ex- to a person who no longer exists? 

All of my nebulous forms meander as atoms up Summer Hill South,
	and pause by the statue on Evergreen Street,
		where only last month a man followed a woman’s atoms,
and split her head with a hammer, a head so like mine.

Fortuitously, a taxi driver stopped to intervene.
	People remarked she was lucky it wasn’t much worse.
		That she was unlucky to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. 
I want to know should I consider her 
	
lucky or unlucky?

At the grotto, we observe Mary. The two weathered stone rabbits 
	beseech her and play 
		in the imaginary grass at her feet.
We soak in that all-too-familiar lapis-blue dress;
	
her hands in supplication, hands at rest, at peace,
		passive. Hands held forth, resisting. 
Whichever it is.  
Hands that, after all these centuries, still keep us.

iii.

Today, somebody kind or pious or homely has filled the cobalt vase 
with tap water, 
	left vivid yellow flowers afresh and my many selves note 
how the young stems seem to shroud the old ones.

How each new bouquet supplants the last.
	
Did her pockets heave with cactus fruit, ovular, once spiked, 
	then peeled, thorns extracted?
Did the burning orange sun cause her eyes to stream?
Was the night full of unusual sounds long into the dawn?

All my atom-selves imagine her for a split-second; human.

We resume our journey. All these versions of me,
	stuck jangling together, bound by identical cells, 
		under constant observation
whether we like it or not. 

Lucy Holme is a writer and mother who lives in Cork, Ireland. Her poems feature in The Stinging Fly, The London Magazine, Southword, Atrium, Wild Court, Poetry Birmingham Literary Journal, Bad Lilies, The Interpreter’s House, Janus Lit and Poetry Wales amongst others. She was shortlisted for The London Magazine Poetry Prize 2023 and has four poems forthcoming over the next two issues. Her CNF has most recently been published in Poetry Birmingham Literary Journal, Banshee Literary Journal, Annie Journal and is forthcoming in The Well Review. She recently received a distinction in her thesis under the supervision of Dr Liz Quirke for the MA in Creative Writing at University College Cork and an Agility Award from the Arts Council to complete further research for a new collection. Her debut chapbook, Temporary Stasis, which was shortlisted for The Patrick Kavanagh Award, was published by Broken Sleep Books in August 2022.