Those must be Irish rocks you were snapped on,
A wave cut platform for a poet, nothing
Between your backside and New York. Was
that
The day you read the map, the day I
drove?
“Straight ahead.” you said, without
looking up,
Without seeing the Atlantic rollers
Rolling over shingle at the road’s
end.
You are shot in near silhouette against
A brittle-blue sky, posed with your
hands poised
Like a gunslinger, over his pistols,
With nowhere to run, so having to turn
And face, knowing that no matter how
quick
You are you can’t outdraw your
destiny.
Way out at sea restless energy roils,
Rising in waves and dashing to the
shore,
Dashing on shore like Waterford crystal
Shattering. Then the turning, drawing
back,
Losing identity in fathomless
Waters, to reform in a different tide:
After all, nothing’s absolutely lost.
Was it cold that afternoon when we
stood
Two poets on that sea-scoured Irish
stage,
Declaiming to the seagulls? I do not
Recall either of us that long gone day,
Before we went to the pub, shivering.
Dave Alton
