By Thomas McCarthy
The late wind again is like a disturbed aunt
Who rattles the doorbell of a door gone missing.
The heart of the month has lost its hat pin,
It returns too soon in a panic of threads –
Even the windows tremble with fever
As I toss and turn in the moist eiderdown.
We have been in bed for five entire months,
Ever since the weather turned bad
In this part of the world. I doubt we will ever
Rise again unless one of our mothers
Comes back to life. If you smell something
Going on in the kitchen please tell us,
For this disturbed wind has pierced
Our souls. A south-westerly has wounded us.
Only the smell of lamb stew from another era
Could make us stand against the wind:
No friend standing upright, provident and unhinged,
No door but a mother knocking in the wind.
