Headlights – Poetry by Katherine Spadaro 

I was in a strange bed, and a random light 
rummaged through folders of filed away years:  
to lying upstairs in Granny’s house, 
where we sisters squabbled, subsided 
and listened as our people’s voices 
floated up, with sparkles and stories, 
and glimmers of strangers 
who led murmured lives. 

A car then would roar down the hill, from town,
towards the beach and the graveyard nearby – 
its headlights exploring the ceiling a moment –  
and it would be gone. And soon another  
strolled over our heads, while the stories continued,  
and we lay on clean sheets – half-hearing, half-watching – 
as voices all ended, and engines turned off, 
and it was all gone, and they were no more. 

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About the Poet

Katherine Spadaro was born in Scotland but has spent most of her life in Australia. She is married with two adult children. Her poems are usually quite short and centre on an everyday experience which seems to have symbolic and spiritual meaning.

For the first time in nearly five years, Vita Brevis is closed for submission. Read the full story here.