Light

Black shoulders, white earphones,
she sits on a wooden stool
in the ‘Internet Centre of Excellence’
on Winthrop Street.

Blends into a smartphone,
consuming power,
hooked,
like my dad consumed TV,
sat by his books
in Fort Mary.

Her fingers fit for a keyboard,
carrying a library
in the pocket
of bleached blue jeans,
sipping water
from a SuperValu plastic bottle.

Frank O’Mahony smoked a pipe
in a drawing room,
sat in an armchair covered in faded flowers,
never blotting a book, straining a spine,
creasing a corner, ripping a leaf.
Father sold books.

Eyes glued to screens,
consuming stories,
liquid crystal married to tubular light,
pathways to wider worlds.

They both wore brown shoes.