Quiet Joy
Stay silent
under eyes of stars
quietly watching,
the cat
slinks by my house,
pads slow, wary,
a mouse
like a dreamer’s sleep
in her mouth.
Single light
from a top window
opens its shadows.
She leaps
with starlit pulse,
airless hissing flash
through night’s
glimpsed witness, its
bonnets of frost,
into living,
this night’s prisoner
making a break.
Cormac Culkeen is a writer of poetry, fiction, nonfiction and short stories. He lives in Galway, Ireland, and is currently completing an MA in Writing at the University of Galway, after completing a BA in Creative Writing. His poetry has been published in the Burning Bush, Skylight 47, The Wild Word, Causeway, Apricot Press, and Bindweed magazine. His debut collection, The Boy With the Radio, was published by Beir Bua Press in May 2022.