Absence

by Kathleen Jones

We didn’t notice they had gone
until
leaving the door wide
on a hot night
the light
stole out
across the grass
without
attracting attention

and the glass
in our uncurtained windows
made a blazing trap
empty
of the June bugs
fluorescent missiles
hurling themselves
in from the dark

and furred moth wings
and Daddy Long-legs
and creeping beetles
only
a figment
in an old web or
a dusting of carapace
and lace wing
on the loft sill

and the swallows’ pouch
of mud and feathers
in the porch,
crumbling

and something
that might have been a swift
cutting an arc –
dark against dark –
above our heads –
we did not know
so long
since we have seen them last.

 

Kathleen Jones writes biography and fiction as well as poetry. Her pamphlet, Unwritten Lives was published by Redbeck Press and her first full collection, Not Saying Goodbye at Gate 21, was joint winner of the Straid Award. Mapping Emily (Templar) and The Rainmaker’s Wife (Indigo Dreams) were both published in 2017. Her poem Whale Fall appeared in the Zoomorphic anthology Driftfish. Kathleen’s home is in Cumbria. She has taught creative writing in a number of universities and is currently a Royal Literary Fund Fellow.