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Out of control

Dennis O'Driscoll

Published 29 April 2002

Poem of the month by Dennis O'Driscoll

Worry on, mothers: you have

good reason to lose sleep,

to let imaginations run riot

as you lie in bed, not counting sheep

but seeing sons and daughters

like lambs led to slaughter

in the road kill of Friday nights.

Remain on standby, mothers -

you never know your luck -

for the knock that would break

the silence like the shock

of a metallic impact against brick.

Keep imagining a police beacon,

a blue moon shattering the darkness.

Lie warily, mothers, where,

eighteen years before, conception

took place in the black of night,

a secret plot; wait restlessly,

as if for a doctor's test,

to find out whether

you are still with child.

Dennis O'Driscoll's sixth collection of poems, Exemplary Damages, will be published later this year by Anvil Press

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