I have a curled photograph
With waves that crest behind you
And your hair, golden veins,
Tangled in the sun that caves,
There you sit— my open secret,
Atlantic,
Frees my wrested heart
At the fortress—
Altar,
Dún Aengus.

In that place, that wanting place,
High— on the jagged edge
I captured you,
Your eyes were ocean,
Atlantis,
Never so deep, never so
Lost.

— for Síneánn*

We drove to a lost, lonely isle,
If only once to find ourselves
Again belonging to the strands
That tided us in beads and wave,
The sea new, aloft and birds moved
As we flew, sailing under cascades,
What breathtaking strides to make
And the sun was dripping and swept
Away to us on the gentle crests breaking
We spoke soft nothings, as to know things
So simple to be kept wanting nor ever said,
The lonely star of day was sleepy, dimmed
By sparks, the shimmer to our eyes, so clear,
Shall be the hills of the isle to us, will always
Remain cast with new lamb and crowned deer,
By thorn and thistle and rimmed with broken shells
Strung on a beach so singular, before innocence
And grace, by two ****** lovers aloft in only sky
To be joined, with hands of the long night stars,
Finally reached, by the glass in the running grains
Untouched, ingrained, stained into ocean salt
Always by the seas of joy and given to each
Ever to be moved on the high tune eternal,
In stations of grass and stray wood drifted
Among wings by the slip of tides monumental,
Till when we drove away, this time, in a carriage
Old of unrestful sleep, crossed, beyond—
A bridge of sighs.

Outside is great cave  .  .  .
Coal mines exploding the skies,
  .  .  .  Canaries long dead.

We lie a bed,
Sheltered in cloud,
Your words, soft, cut
Like fawning feathers
Serrated in a bone vise,
Our mattress was a grave,
Six feet, founded asunder,
Your pulling hair ropes me in
Two, the fabric of fleet, tightening
Fingers, laid without guile nor shame,
Without a drop of torn, tearing tenderness,
I am hollow in bleak breaking, spiking silences,
You remain cautionary, vacant in the blanketed hush
Tried, as we were doomed, in the noonday rush of sun
That slept in crawling frosts of creeping shade.

White face burns in night  .  .  .
Light of moon slides across lake,
  .  .  .  Spot on loneliness.

Poet to my eyes, you are the sight of whitecaps
On the sea water, or the sudden turn of a bird
In flight and as the wave I roll and break,
With drowning wings that lift toward you, my sky.

Mistress to my soul, I am the nave of your holy
Cathedral.  My head is but an occluded riff,
De-noting songs you make in aisling airs of light
Polyphony, my star over-sings the windy globe,

She swallows heaven, like swallows blacken the dusk.
Shearwater bird, strip my surface with your cutting
Wings.  My waves peak to reach you starling girl.

The sloughing chill of winter dies quick in sighs
Waft asunder my little Indian summer, wake me
From sleep and I shall dream but once for your kiss.

Small shell of her back—
Slip of tongue rounds breaking mouth,
  .  .  .  Arms surrendering.

Times tackle on the threads.
We beat the strand seahorse
Dashed, unfurl the curling
Toes, your body twists
In the boat, only ribs
From the spirit waters.  
Your fish fins from the net,
My rod pins on the pine
And the hooked meat, your barb,
Reels as it plays the swampy
Moan of the gutted bait.