The Ofi Press Magazine

Poems by Richie McCaffery (UK)

Published in The Ofi Press issue 45

Nothing

I was born in a hospital

that no longer exists.

My warmth incubates

this watch on my wrist.

My friend moved away

walking through town,

his mattress on his back

like it was a cross.

Why when I buy a picture

do they say the frame

is worth the price alone,

as if I skirt around issues?

You ask what I’m thinking –

Nothing is my best answer.

Dog Cemetery, Tynemouth Park

On the edge of the park,

the old dog cemetery

with un-Christian names

like Whisky, Bimbo and Lassie

Sticks snapped from trees

by the wind like offerings,

the soft earth all at once

beckoned to your heel.

Saddest of all the dogs

named after a loyal original,

as if the successor never

really existed in itself.

The rabbits they must’ve got,

flushed from their holes –

they hunted, were hunted,

and are the bones they loved.