Out in the field where, once,
we played Dead Man’s Fall,
the others are being called
through the evening dusk
– Kenny and Marek, the Corrigans, Alex McClure –
mothers and sisters calling them home for tea
from kitchens fogged with steam and buttered toast,
broth on the hot plate, ham hough and yellow lentils.
Barely a wave, then they’re gone, till no one is left,
and the dark from the woods closes in on myself alone,
the animals watching, the older gods
couched in the shadows.
Decades ago, I suppose,
though I cannot be sure.
I have waited here, under the stars,
for the longest time.
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