by Dion O'Reilly

I have no great fluency, but I love the cloud-sounds
the chords make when I push the una corda pedal,
the strange power of the black keys, every note,
a little person with a head—empty or full. I love
the confidence of the right hand and the shady
misgivings of the left, the practice pieces
I’ve tried, for years, to master. This time, I’m also
lying in my unwashed bed, listening to Sister
attempt “Für Elise” for the twentieth time. With every
discordant note, my mother knocks her off the bench—
The smack, the fall, the cry, then a faulty “Für Elise.”
On and on. This is how she taught us
to ride bikes, wash dishes, weed the endless lawn. It’s how
she drilled spelling, forced hotel corners. It’s how
I learned to look in the mirror, my ugliness working her up
for the next gut-punch, the next backhand to the head. It’s a miracle I love
piano, love to sing, love how it lifts me, most of the time, from my dark
churn of thoughts. I wait till no one’s home in case I break
when I get it wrong, or even when I get it right. There it is
again, the same blunt fist, the same ritual
of excoriation, the same aching crescendos and adagios
in every imperfect song I won't stop playing.

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Dion O'Reilly is the author of Sadness of the Apex Predator, Ghost Dogs, and Limerence, a finalist for the John Pierce Chapbook Competition, forthcoming from Floating Bridge Press. Her work appears in The Sun, Rattle, The Slowdown, Cincinnati Review, Alaska Quarterly, and elsewhere. She is a podcaster at The Hive Poetry Collective, leads poetry workshops, and is a reader for Catamaran. She splits her time between a ranch in California and a residence in Bellingham.

by Dion O’Reilly

What was the beat
in my mother's brain when she
beat me—not a
metronome—
not the mud thump
of a march,
nothing like a dirge.
No, I think when she
flamed the whip,
she winged a Hendrix solo.
Rock-star mommy, red-lipped
maestro of an electric age,
slim-hipped genius
of bite and longing,
violet-eyed siren
of slash and response—
daily, I was her
wah wah pedal,
her feedback,
her Oh Say Can You See,
her conjuring fingers
turning the whole hot
spotlight of the world
in our direction.
From the round mouth
of every speaker,
a Stratacaster howl,
a static shatter, mortar and Napalm,
land of the free,
home of the brave,
my flag still there.

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Dion O'Reilly’s early years were spent on an isolated family compound, subject to the whims of a culty, psychopathic parent. Her debut collection, Ghost Dogs, was runner-up for The Catamaran Prize and shortlisted for The Eric Hoffer Award. Her second book, Sadness of the Apex Predator, will be published by University of Wisconsin's Cornerstone Press in 2024. Her work appears in The Bellingham Review, The Sun, Rattle, Narrative, The Slowdown, and elsewhere. She facilitates private workshops, hosts a podcast at The Hive Poetry Collective, and is a reader for Catamaran Literary Quarterly. She splits her time between a ranch in the Santa Cruz Mountains and a residence in Bellingham, Washington.

by Dion O'Reilly

Once I was beautiful. Now I am myself,
—Anne Sexton  


When I flew past, giants  
turned to watch me, 
air transformed my skin 
to the shape of wind— 
my feet were nob-less, 
my chin, cameo ivory, 
no score from lip to nostril,  
no rumples on the flat 
sheet of my cheek. 
Hips and femurs, dense  
as a bison’s, took me down 
to the warm silt  
of Canyon de Chelly, 
tramped twenty miles up 
wildflower trails at Wishon. 
My brain tore shapes 
from the walls of cliffs— 
glyphed deer from the Holocene 
the rust-blown shapes of hands. 
Oh, my body sweltered, 
with every kind of female heat. 
Night seeped into morning— 
disco balls, ten-speed careening  
through traffic, catcalls as common 
as chanticleers on the Ponderosa. 
Once I had hair, 
Medusa-wild, butt-length. 
I thought its feathery glaze  
would save me.   

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Dion O'Reilly’s collection, Ghost Dogs, was shortlisted for The Catamaran Prize and The Eric Hoffer Award. Her second book, Sadness of the Apex Predator, will be published by Cornerstone Press. Her work appears in The Sun, Rattle, Cincinnati Review, Narrative, The Slowdown, and elsewhere. She facilitates workshops and hosts a podcast at The Hive Poetry Collective. Recently, her poem "The Value of Tears" was chosen by Denise Duhamel as winner of the Glitter Bomb Award.

by Dion O'Reilly

I
Then the ground was lit
by a sprawl of them.
Lily pad leaves, spiced,
sticky bloom. A flame
rushing the field.

II
Then, at home, a spark
struck me. My robe caught.
The belt, knotted, so I rose
as smoke above the roar.

III
Then the doctors peeled what skin remained. Laid pieces
of my parchment on the plains of grainy muscle.

(My breasts and back they wrapped
in corpses’ skin.)

IV
Then, months later, my face bland, glazed
from the grace of morphine, my body,
thin-limbed. Bent,

creviced like bark.
Fingernails, black,
rough to the touch,
crumbly as charcoal.

V
Behind my eyes, still,
the beaded leaves,
veined, shot with light.
Blossoms like bright mouths—
the needle-sweet tongues.

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Dion O'Reilly has spent most of her life on a small farm in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Her prize-winning book, Ghost Dogs, was published in February 2020 by Terrapin Books. Her work appears in American Journal of Poetry, Cincinnati Review, Narrative, The New Ohio Review, The Massachusetts Review, New Letters, Rattle, The Sun, and other literary journals and anthologies.

by Dion O'Reilly

From the baselines in Big Sister’s
bedroom, from the longhairs
necking with her
in the backseat of the Lincoln,
or stuck together
like dolphins in the deep end,
I knew something of sex,
but I suffered
a nervy pulse I couldn’t decipher.
Wires crossed and fizzed.
Their crux flickered
a teensy bulb, center front
of my hairless cleft.
Crowning bitty head
in a wimply fold.
Tight whorl that needed
soothing. Clenchy itch,
which pressed me to straddle
the edge of my third-grade chair.
glide side to side
on a hidden pin.
Mommy’s lip curled
with what looked like desire.
She pronounced me Dirty. Swarming.
Big Sister and her boyfriends
snickered and scorned.
Still, as I sipped my tea in bone
china with bloody roses,
as I looked at the naked
ceiling pulse, I pushed
my center fire.
Poked and poked to keep it quiet.
When I lay down, it grew louder.

*This poem was a Finalist in the SWWIM For-the-Fun-of-It Contest.

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Dion O’Reilly's first book, Ghost Dogs, was published in February 2020 by Terrapin Books. Her work appears in Cincinnati Review, Poetry Daily, Verse Daily, Narrative, The New Ohio Review, The Massachusetts Review, New Letters, Sugar House Review, Rattle, The Sun, and other literary journals and anthologies. Her poetry has been nominated for several Pushcarts and been shortlisted for a variety of prizes. She is a member of The Hive Poetry Collective, which produces podcasts and events, and she teaches ongoing workshops on a farm in the Santa Cruz Mountains--now on Zoom.

by Dion O’Reilly

The ghost is complaining,
her memories are a wind

I can do nothing about.
Pale ghost. Skinny ghost. Bird ghost
who gorges on drunken berries,

leaves a body smear on my window
I can’t bear to clean. Exhausted ghost.
Felon ghost. Ghost who lived with me

beneath the same ribs. Carved my past
like a glacier. Melted and left me
a burning sea of dust and playa.

Ghost who curled with me
inside our mother,
whom I took into my blood

in order to survive.
Did she die inside me?
Let me cough her up,

razor myself open.
I want another chance.

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Dion O’Reilly's first book, Ghost Dogs, was published in February 2020 by Terrapin Books. Her work appears in Cincinnati Review, Poetry Daily, Verse Daily, Narrative, The New Ohio Review, The Massachusetts Review, New Letters, Rattle, The Sun, and other literary journals and anthologies. She is a member of The Hive Poetry Collective, which produces podcasts and events, and she Zoom-facilitates ongoing workshops from an artsy farmhouse in the Santa Cruz Mountains.

by Dion O’Reilly

I have been waiting like a crooked coiled snake in the corner of my life.—Monique Ferrell


I have a cashmere poncho and a beautiful son,
a husband who watches my shadow
as we walk, sees a nimbus
crowning my head.
My daughter is a bird. She hoots
night into my ear.

I’ve been carried over and over
to the creek like meat to be cleaned
before eating.

Been in double jeopardy.
Sinned the same way more than twice
been exonerated due to luck and money.

Let me put it this way: I was deviled
by my childhood. My sister would beg
to beat me. I was an animal
my mother ate to fortify her blood.

And so I mistook the punctures in my throat
the sudden energy of lovers
when they walked out
as a kind of marriage.  I felt bedecked in white
the very center of attention

until the pump and surge of blood
flooded my lace.

How did I change? Not choice.
More like lightning taken by a tree
because the tree learned to tower.
I stopped believing Paradise
is a place I used to live, neglected the itch
to bolt when I wasn’t the feast.          

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Dion O’Reilly's first book, Ghost Dogs, will be published in spring 2020. Her work appears in The New Ohio Review, New Letters, Sugar House Review, Rattle, The Sun, Tupelo Quarterly, Narrative, and other literary journals and anthologies. Her work has been shortlisted for a variety of prizes— most recently, The Charles Bukowski Poetry Prize. She is a member of The Hive Poetry Collective, which produces podcasts about poetry in the Monterey Bay and around the world.

by Dion O’Reilly

Appetite makes them keen

when they scan the tunneled field

for shivers in the dead grass.

Their vision sharpens, pupils dilate.

From a mile away, they see

their feed, and they take it.

All my life, I’ve stowed my stories

like a box of banned books

under the bed. Each one, unforgiven,

an arc of trouble and want.

They quicken my hunger

for what I’ll never have

or never have again—

a mother mainly, certain men,

but a sister and brother too, a city

I walked in with hot paper cups,

my lips foamed with cappuccino

as it rained and rained.

Oh, the world feels tidal

when I get like this, when l can’t stop

hunting for something intimate and filling.

I see it lift from the soil.

The sun, a muzzle flash,

turning the meadow bright, burning

off the haze. I soar in, see it magnified,

everything itself only more so.

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Dion O’Reilly has spent  much of her life on a farm in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Her poetry appears or is forthcoming in Sugar House Review, Rattle, The Sun, Canary Magazine, Spillway, Bellingham Review, Atlanta Review and a many other journals and anthologies, including a Lambda Anthology. Her work has been nominated for Pushcarts and a variety of prizes and contests.