The Tuesday Poem

Meteorites

The news reports have us out

by the side of the house

craning our necks to the northeast

where Cassiopeia is slung between

a telegraph pole and the chestnut tree.

Behind us, the television

is flickering through the curtains

as we wait for the Perseids to show.

We get plenty of time to debate

that light beetling across the sky —

are satellites visible to the naked eye?

And while we’re here perhaps

I should point out the broken chute

where sparrows nest year in, year out,

and the snails streaking across the wall,

intent on their own galaxy.

* Tom Moore is from Midleton, Co Cork, and has worked in the Department of Biochemistry, UCC, since 2000. This poem is a former prizewinner in the Gregory O’Donoghue International Poetry Competition which is now open again. See www.munsterlit.ie for details.