.
.
.
Empties
When Dad passed we found
bottles everywhere:
behind the settee,
within the cistern,
beside the tallboy,
in coat pockets and
underneath his bed.
We completely missed
all the emptiness
hidden in plain sight.
It was everywhere.
Some of it even
inside the bottles—
very clever that.
But most of it went
with him to his grave.
The worms must have felt
so disappointed.
Some rubbed off on me.
Otherwise I would
never have noticed.
.
.
About the Author: Jim Murdoch has been writing poetry for fifty years and has graced the pages of many now-defunct literary magazines and websites and a few, like Ink, Sweat and Tears, The Lake and Eclectica, that are still hanging on in there. For ten years he ran the literary blog The Truth About Lies but now lives in relative obscurity in Scotland with his wife and (occasionally) next door’s cat. He has published two books of poetry, a short story collection and four novels.
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Image Credit: John Margolies “The Can Pile, Casselton, North Dakota” (1992) The Library of Congress
As It Ought To Be 