AUTOETYMOLOGY
My name, Kelly, is an Irish name
of uncertain origin, but I was always
told that it came from ceallach,
which is Old Irish for war
or strife.
So why is it that when I hear my
own name I do not hear the clanging
of halberds or the riastrad war cries
of Ulster’s Hound?
Instead I hear the sound of an applicator
wand plunging into a tube of lip gloss.
I smell mall food bourbon chicken and
fresh Subway bread the furthest smells
from peat and soil. This is not the name
of a poetess.
It is the name of a girl who spent her
early years telling herself morbid stories
with dolls and taking pleasure in her
own furtiveness. A colonized Irish name
for a colonizer born of the blood of
colonizers that
have not yet been ejected. Also, a shade
of green, but not my
favorite shade of
green.
