' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' Stealing Time From The Universe(In Memory Of My Mother Ita Dempsey) Poem by Dónall Dempsey

The clocks
go forward

by an hour.

We steal time
from the Universe

unaware as yet
we will have to give it back.

Our faces
hang like masks

mirrored in the dark
hospital window

our own ghosts
visiting this night.

I watch myself
as if seeing

someone from another world
who is & isn’t me.


Outside a bird
unknown to us

creates the dawn
whistling like a janitor

opening up
the early morning.

We gain
this extra hour

(this added time) .

The clock caught napping
still living in the not so long ago

my mother
stepping into her future

that is now
her past

the extra hour
like a useless bauble

falling out of
her hand.