Ursula Kelly

The Love Song of Adam Smith’s Mistress

When I shadow-priced the hours we shared,
I feared the final due date for the bill –
my infinite demand, your scarce supply,
had placed a premium rate on our exchange –
but yet it seems past trade-offs we have made
have bought for us this windfall time
to spend our hoarded minutes here and now,
tracing the touch of an invisible hand.
And so I treasure the present value
of our days, discount dread of future cost
in preference for now, my optimum 
optimorum. We curve toward a state
of perfect competition, levelling
our gaze in coalescence of desire. 

Ursula Kelly is originally from Northern Ireland and currently spends most of the year in Spain.  She published some creative writing (poetry, short stories) as a young woman but then her efforts became absorbed by writing for work purposes.  She worked for many years in higher education management, then set up her own consultancy company about 15 years ago, specialising in social and economic impact analyses of tertiary education.   As her work commitments have wound down, she has started to focus on writing poetry and has had work published recently in a number of journals in the UK, Ireland and Spain, including  Acumen, Poetry Scotland, Under the Radar, The Wild Umbrella, Ragaire, The Cannon’s Mouth, and The Madrid Review.