Margaret Kiernan
I rush to leave the city in March 2020 People stop wait to cross at streetlights I watch see an amateur- drama notice stuck on a pole advert for a suburban Play I resist its thrall eagerly refuse to embrace amateur dramatics as my head can rust It could make grim hearing have me reap apathy like rivers carrying paper boxes coffee cups plastic virgin statues neither valuable nor rare A home-less man in a long designer coat rants-aloud at the river while below a water-logged baby stroller acts as a sieve Darkness is arriving as the man eats stale bread pitches some to the missing pigeons while train tracks become animated under streetlights houses shaped out scoped against the twilight sycamore leaves splash against my face there is news of plague A tunnel of long shadow pulls me forward as the idling train in the station hoots harried seagulls dip and dive it is time to go time to get out to move on follow my shadow westward.
Margaret is currently a Nominee for Best of The Net, 2021 in creative non-fiction. She writes poetry and prose and is published in both. Margaret is in the Index of Contemporary Women Poets in Ireland, 2020.
Old Water Rat Publishing 