Misconception

This is a poem about a moon

that was visible one clear day

in December: three quarters visible -

buttermilk against delphinium -

as framed in a pane of this window:

and a sequence of airplanes

with short contrails, swimming

through the blue, in its direction,

particularly the first seemed sure

to merge with the stationary orb –

but missed it by what looked like

little more that a millimetre.

Market Forces

Tonight, love, the moon is big over Drake's Pool

and the wood on the far bank is clearly defined

in shadow. The air is so clear that I can hear

the faint 'ching, ching, ching' of the breeze against

the masts of the yachts that are moored there.

There is too much sweetness about all this.

Tomorrow everything will be as normal.

All of that has been organised already.

The school run, the groceries, the monthly

payments

- all confidently sorted. Nothing to do now

but figure out how best to tell the children.

When I get home, I imagine, we will talk

'til well past midnight, trying to read between

the lines of a far-off dissertation; and how

the turn of a page can have such disastrous

consequences. But still, hearing in our minds

the voices of our parents, repeat assurances

of how this might well bring something better.

And in the small hours glad to have each other,

whispering, where will we be this time next year?

Olive Broderick is reading in the Poetry Ireland Introductions series at the Irish Writers' Centre on 20 May