It was only when he reached the house,
that he remembered he didn’t live there
anymore and that she had most likely
changed the locks. It’s funny how
the stresses of a day can cause us
to seek refuge in the patterns of the past.
Her family home, he still remembered
the first time, standing on the step,
wondering whether to knock or ring
(she had told him there was a strict house
preference, which he had quickly forgotten),
and hoping that she would answer,
not her father, it would be easier
to explain the forgotten corsage.
Maurice Devitt is the Curator of the Irish Centre for Poetry Studies site. His Pushcart-nominated poem, ‘The Lion Tamer Dreams of Office Work’, was the title poem of an anthology published by Hibernian Writers in 2015. His second collection, ‘Some of These Stories are True’, was published by Doire Press in 2023.