Small graves, poor graves,
Lilies and the Virgin,

Poetry slips
From sagging limestone,

Willow seeds in the May breeze,
Glint, like lingering souls.

Despite a thousand disguises,
As it grows dark she’s revealed,
Humming in a mode only rivers know,

While the trees turn to spilled ink,
And the horses roll in the mead,
Like a heart murmur.

Night doesn’t fall,
but rises from the water,
Drowning the meadow in sound.

What the tide left behind;
barnacles and whale songs,
and a few of the best parts
of my father.

Dún Laoghaire is a stone
lifeboat that rises and falls,
but it’s a long town
for little legs,

so we made a giant
(you only get lighter)
and we made a slow-witted bear,
and we ran in the spray
as the shore gently sank.

Dún Laoghaire is a sand
castle, but the sea
doesn’t scare you.
As it washes away at your feet,
lighter and lighter you become.