Poem of the Day

Bernard O’Donoghue’s most recent collection is The Seasons of Cullen Church. Lives of Houses, the anthology from which this poem is taken. We live peril times!

Safe Houses

I find that I have started recently
to keep spare keys to the front door                             
in several pockets, such is my fear
of being locked out. Caught by the wind
the door could shut quietly behind you,
leaving you to face the outer world alone.

Once safe inside I don’t put on the chain.     
In guerrilla conflicts, the combatants

change their safe house at intervals
to give their hosts a rest from listening
for the thump on the door in the early hours,
as at the end of winter you escape
from cold and dark by making for
the sunnier climates to the south.

But where do we retreat to in the end
when the call to open up will not subside?
Kate in her nineties was no longer fit
to mind herself, so they took her in
to the Lee Road. When I called to see her
the nurse unlocked the door to the main room
and turned the key again behind me.                          

She was there with twenty other women,                             

all chattering and laughing like the magpies                          

in Purgatorio, not to each other
but to the unhearing outside world.
I thought of Masaccio’s grieving couple,
not grasping what they’ve been exiled from,
some corner where the serpent cannot reach.

Bernard O’Donoghue