January Drought

It needn’t be tinder, this juncture of the year,  
a cigarette second guessed from car to brush.  

The woods’ parchment is given  
to cracking asunder the first puff of wind.  
Yesterday a big sycamore came across First  
and Hawthorne and is there yet.  

The papers say it has to happen,  
if just as dribs and drabs on the asbestos siding.  
But tonight is buckets of stars as hard and dry as dimes.  

A month’s supper things stacks in the sink.  
Tea brews from water stoppered in the bath  
and any thirst carried forward is quenched thinking you,  
piece by piece, an Xmas gift hidden  
and found weeks after: the ribbon, the box.  

I have reservoirs of want enough  
to freeze many nights over.

Conor O'Callaghan