a plastic water bottle
see-through debris
of an unplanned day-trip
its hollow clunk-clunk-clunk
into the recently emptied
recycling bin echoing through
the shallow chambers
of my heart—blood pulsing
into unwashed fingertips
the cheek-kiss of a too-warm
spring breeze—forewarning of
the oncoming storm
this knowing there is no right here
there can be no rights
out of all these wrong turns
what are we anyway
only ghosts living in
some future past
drifting blindly by
as Earth simmers
but persists
Author of ‘where the lost things go’ (Salmon Poetry 2017), Anne Casey has worked for 25+ years as a journalist, magazine editor, media communications director and legal author. Her poetry has won/shortlisted for awards in Ireland, USA, UK, Canada and Australia; she ranks in The Irish Times Most-Read. Anne is Senior Poetry Editor of two literary journals for Swinburne University, Melbourne. Her poems feature in The Irish Times, Entropy, apt, Murmur House, Quiddity, Cordite, The Incubator, Verity La, Plumwood Mountain, The Honest Ulsterman, The Stony Thursday Book, Into The Void, Autonomy anthology and Burning House Press among others. Her second collection is forthcoming in 2019.
