The Late Wind

By Thomas McCarthy

The late wind again is like a disturbed aunt

Who rattles the doorbell of a door gone missing.

The heart of the month has lost its hat pin,

It returns too soon in a panic of threads –

Even the windows tremble with fever

As I toss and turn in the moist eiderdown.

We have been in bed for five entire months,

Ever since the weather turned bad

In this part of the world. I doubt we will ever

Rise again unless one of our mothers

Comes back to life. If you smell something

Going on in the kitchen please tell us,

For this disturbed wind has pierced

Our souls. A south-westerly has wounded us.

Only the smell of lamb stew from another era

Could make us stand against the wind:

No friend standing upright, provident and unhinged,

No door but a mother knocking in the wind.