(20)
From a window, a woman watches the lowering sun
throw shadows across a forest in Gotland.
Near Chicago, a landscape architect jogs round the lake,
wondering when he'll next create a new park.
From bed, in a cottage at the top of a hill in Rathmullan,
a bereaved mother binge-watches Offspring.
A small girl from Kigali Instagrams her first ever
mandazi with cinnamon.
At a stop sign on an empty street in Bologna,
a man clutches his chest.
A boy stares at fish, visible, still, below the frozen lid
of a pond in Ontario, and tries to break open a hole.
In La Paz, a toddler stares up at her father,
as he resists embracing her gran on her birthday.
A newly-retired chef leaves a Cajun fish stew
on the window sill at a neighbour’s in Weymouth.
Down a laneway in Adelaide, a driver beep-beeps
as his lorry reverses, spooking a horse with a rider.
In Zimbabwe, a guy in a Landrover crosses a vlei
to watch lion approaching a pan.
After another digital school day, a teenager drops
from a bridge in Beijing.
Hour after hour in Phnom Penh, a writer taps at a keyboard,
bottle of vodka beside him.
A single mum in Dundrum, with a son doing the Leaving,
calls Niall on the radio.
In a care home on Jeju, a five-year-old’s grandfather dies
as, outside, the child's breath clouds over the window.
On the island of Aran, a lad waves at the stranger
he plans to meet and invite on a date.
At the Cork South Infirmary, a woman is told that her test
is negative, her relief, so enormous, she longs to hug someone.
Afric McGlinchey
