The Font – a poem by Ted Mc Carthy

The Font 

A woman has taken her daughter to see
the dried font. The girl's eyes roam
round the altar, flickering between boredom

and curosity, like a screen changing channels.
What astonishes her most, it seems, is the silence.
Nothing in her life has prepared her for this

any more than her mother could have foreseen
the absence of water and what it symbolised.

All they can do is find the spot where they stood
that glass-lit afternoon, one carrying the other.
They fix it, or near enough, from a photograph

and pose, content, They know a little more
about themselves, each other, now that their feet
are at the centre of what fell away around them.

Ted Mc Carthy is a poet, translator and playwright living in Clones, Ireland. His work has appeared in magazines in Ireland, the UK, Germany, the USA, Canada and Australia. He has had two collections published, November Wedding, and Beverly Downs. His work can be found on www.tedmccarthyspoetry.weebly.com