RAINDROP
I hold on by day, but in the night
when lonely shepherds tend their flocks
bending low from arching lights
under an iron sky, the blackness
criss-crossed with prayers,
laced with phosphorous tracer
and laden with soldiers metal, I listen
to mosquitoes choosing their moment.
The sirens begin to wail but I am dead
until a single raindrop on my forehead
washes over me, your hand on my skin
a teardrop.
Michael J. Whlean served as a peacekeeper with the Irish Army in South Lebanon and Kosovo. He was 2nd Place Winner of the Patrick Kavanagh Poetry Award in 2011 and selected for the Poetry Ireland Introductions Series in 2012. His poems and short stories have been published in Cyphers, Crannog and The Moth. (www.michaeljwhelan.wordpress.com)