Out Again at Night

Claudia McGill 10 Comments

From the collection published in 2021, And Don’t Come Back.

Out Again at Night

Ten minutes after midnight
I approach the tumbledown house
in the humid darkness. The razor-sharp echo
of a barking dog magnified by distance
he hears me but he is too far away to hear me
terrifies and reassures. A candle flickers
and flares in an upstairs window
The curtain is alight now. Distressing but
Not my problem. Creeping across the grass
I flinch at another crash of thunder
take a tighter hold on my purse. Now the terrace railing.
I climb and drop. I dislike the feel of the lichened concrete
on my hands. No time to search for a tissue
to wipe them clean. A scent of moldering roses –
a whole florist shop-full of rotten sweet petals perishing –
follows me from the ruined garden. I wish I could hold my nose.
A white moth flutters around my head. Annoyed
I brush it away and drop my purse. The window above me
shatters from the heat of the flames. Glass rains down.
I finger-comb it in sparkles from my hair. Where is my purse?
I curse, not for the first time tonight, and –

Settling into the pillows
I lick my finger and turn the page.
The bedside lamp will be on
for some hours yet.

7/10/20

10 thoughts on “Out Again at Night”

  2. You capture that sense of being transported into an imaginary world and situation perfectly. You also convey that sense of being trapped inside a real page-turner of a book and feeling compelled to keep going. I fall asleep while reading all the time precisely for that reason. As for the passage being read, I really enjoyed how evocative it was and the sense of foreboding you created.

    • Thank you. I enjoyed writing this poem. I am not good with plot, but maybe I should just start writing and see where it goes, this poem reminds me that is the way I seem to want to work, and why not just go until I run out of gas? I have not tried this, maybe I need to…

      • Why not? Even if you find you don’t enjoy writing at length, that’s still a valuable lesson and you might develop some ideas that you use elsewhere.

        • Yes, I have tried it a few times in the past and then repurposed the results in poems, mostly. But longer story type things like this. I am kind of feeling what I like is short and more “poetic” story writing like this than ever trying even a short story or a novel. Because I get so impatient with all the details.

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