A cry in the night—help me mummy—
he leaps, limbs flailing in his onesie,
eyes blazing coals,
a hero under geas, fighting
our common enemy;
I reach for the switch
and he is two again,
grasp his floppy arm and
hoist him out from the other world,
telling him dinosaurs are only bones
as together we go down
to the microwave droning
like an Armageddon machine;
use stubby crayons to make
the sky cyan, the world flat.
Bernadette McCarthy's poetry has been published in journals including Acumen, Agenda, Crannóg, The Honest Ulsterman, The London Magazine, Poetry Ireland Review, Shearsman, and Southword. Her chapbook Bog Arabic was published by Southword Editions (2018).
More work by Bernadette McCarthy
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