ONE-TIME CODE

The sky is a broken plate, pale and cruel
and lightning scratches oblivion’s face.

Each step in this funeral procession
is a shadow leading to a heart of silence.

Old people watch like portraits in a vacuum
a future they never thought would arrive.

Butterflies of a forgotten summer:
faces changed to masks staring

with helpless grief at an irrevocable world,
a distant chance now truer than truth.

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S.C. Flynn was born in a small town in Australia of Irish origin and now lives in Dublin. His collections are The Colour of Extinction (Renard Press, October 2024) and An Ocean Called Hope (Downingfield Press, May 2025).

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