OPPOSITE

Ice on the cars has thawed and frozen
again, it has a strange, furred tinge
under the street lights. Opposite,
behind stiff curtains, comes a soft
glow, a lamp on a timer set
to deter burglars. I can name,
with my eyes closed, half a dozen such
along this road that was once
familiar as cloth against the skin.

They say somewhere that you can never
enter the sea without the world
around you changing. For me, here
at my front door, it is, however
briefly, the opposite; everything is
as it once was, they are all suddenly
moving in and through, those families,
their homes are a message I can’t decipher
yet, but it doesn’t matter,
the moment is whole, each blurred interior
patient as the night, and waiting.

Ted Mc Carthy is a poet and translator living in Clones, Co. Monaghan. His work has appeared in magazines in Ireland, the UK, Germany, the USA, Canada, and Australia. He has had two collections published, November Wedding and Beverly Downs.

His work can be found on www.tedmccarthyspoetry.weebly.com