Tall buildings cast overlapping shadows.
It’s night long before nighttime.
Last of the commuters catch their train, their bus.
Garages empty out.
The few inner city dwellers
lock and latch the doors
of their small fortresses.
At street level,
two men approach each other.
It’s dark. Identities are smudged.
Is it? No it can’t be?
Wasn’t he the one who… ?
And didn’t he…?
They nod as they pass –
recognition or just acknowledgment
that there’s no other in this world –
neither gives an indication.
Each hears footsteps
on the concrete sidewalk,
softer and softer,
farther and farther away.
Then all would be silent
if it weren’t for themselves.
But they don’t feel responsible,
just alone.
John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident. Published in Nebo, Euphony, Columbia Review, Leading Edge, Poetry East and Midwest Quarterly.
Runner-up in The Interpreter’s House Poetry Competition in 2017, Maurice Devitt was winner of the Trocaire/Poetry Ireland Competition in 2015 and has been placed or shortlisted in many competitions including the Patrick Kavanagh Award, Listowel Collection Competition, Over the Edge New Writer Competition, Cuirt New Writing Award, Cork Literary Review and the Doire Press International Chapbook Competition. He has had poems published in Ireland, England, Scotland, the US, Mexico, Romania, India and Australia, runs the Irish Centre for Poetry Studies site and is a founder member of the Hibernian Writers’ Group.
Foxglove Journal 