Playing with Light

Wendy Mooney

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With the drinking over
I am consuming vacancy and air:

frigid kiss from the lip of the emptied glass
that dances light upon the paintwork

so that when I flick my wrist
the sun goes up and down the kitchen wall.
Set, rise, set –

emptiness can be beautiful too,
though we all know that appearances can be deceiving,

that an egg is still an egg when it's really just a shell
after you have pierced a hole in it,
blown out its insides with a straw.

We toy with illusions.
I speed up time with my wrist
And control my own destiny on my kitchen ceiling.

You perceive me as drunk but really I am full of intelligence.
You see me as intelligent but I am empty of thought
and full of emotions, human after all –

running my hands on the brickwork,
trying to catch the warmth in the sun
that has already left the wall.

Wendy Mooney has previously had poems published in Poetry Ireland Review and in Crannog. She lives in Dublin.