Niall McCarthy

They Came Through Ellis Island
Niall McCarthy

They came through Ellis Island with thunder and longing
for beauty and the sacrifice of beauty,
for money and the cancer of wealth,
for land and the leprosy of building,
for life and the hourglass of breath.
Manhattan melted.
Warsaw moved to Nassau .
Calverton snapped harp strings and weaved them into chains.

At JFK, like everyone else, I was a terrorist, no longer
an amadán, waiting to be called forward with my passport
and papers;
perhaps not as eager as those that have gone before;
my forlorn face waiting to discover the clouds
in cappuccino froth –
a shanty town waiting for a hurricane that will probably
never happen.

NYC. Dec 05.

Neil McCarthy is a Galway-based poet and English Teacher. His work has appeared in numerous magazines and journals around the world. He has read his work at various events in Ireland, New York, Australia, Finland and the UK. This autumn he has been invited to read in Graz (Austria), Prague, Nuremburg and The Dylan Thomas Centre in Wales.