WISHBONE

A drifting wishbone
Smoothly straddled
The moon. Its black forks gripped
The dazzling ice –

An argent coin of endless
Wealth, waiting
To be broken out,
Pocketed and spent.

I left my bed and stared,
Pushed the window open;
I leant across the garden,
Reached above the trees.

No-one stirred.
I stretched and froze alone.
The wishbone passed,
Its fortune whole, uncracked.

MARK EDMUND HUTCHESON

Previously published in ‘An Leabhar Mór na hÉireann / The Great Book of Ireland’ and in ‘Janus’ (Dublin: Dublin Tutorial Centre, Summer 1993)