Film Set on Earth

A poem by John McAuliffe

Unforced, off set, the sound man 
turns to his neighbour and asks for a light.
Inside, for us or someone like us, the crew is shadowy, 
huge around the klieg light’s spotlight.

Unforced. The roses. The sound man smoking. 
The girl putting away her noisy light.
The kitchen, small, wooden, narrow, from which she emerges
with tea to sit in the TV light.

Every starting point prefigures its ending. 
But to look is to miss the tears that alight
on the faces of everyone who has ever known her, 
the fever of her growth into the light.

JOHN MCAULIFFE’s latest book The Way In is due this summer. He contributes a monthly column on new poetry to The Irish Times.