Una McDonnell

I just saw Una McDonnell's work in Ottawater issue 2, January 2006 online here, and I loved her two poems "Agape" and "Oranges". Her opening in Agape, and the slow progress through the world, is great, and so is the ending. Let me quote the opening here, it has an aura of the Greek marble benches of late Neo-classist art and Pounds evocation of them in the Cantos:

For you I will become the stoneless olive, pulled warm 

from leaves, slyly entered and perfectly left: intact [...]

Her poem "Oranges" is even better, a poem with a focal point that is very lush, like flowers in Pre-Raphaelite work. It has a superb opening and an ending I really love:

Your hand clutches a weighty mesh bag 

full of them. The day you find them. Him—with her. 

Bursting into the room, you, your naked 

wrist, hold forth a single offering: blood

orange, mottled. Notice the alien landscape 

of the fruit’s skin. On your palm, its rough mystery. [...]

crisp citrus against an oceanic funk.

You will be the one left open, outstretched hand, pulp

inside your grasping fingers.