Hymen

You are the river beneath my village,

a constant fresh flow,

a silent companion to my days.

I am the sea all about you,

eating into your cliffs,

tidemarking your empty beaches,

as you stare into your star-pocked sky.

The House of Forgotten Things

Tigh a' dearúid

A Virgin Mary blue and white house,

on the road west of Dingle, reminded

passers to buy what they had forgotten.

What if you could drop off what you needed to forget?

Forgotten people in the upstairs rooms,

forgotten dreams, damp on the line in the back kitchen,

forgotten promises kicking the mattresses from under the beds,

and forgotten lovemaking tossing sheets and blankets each night.

Would the store of memories and passions reach a threshold,

and self-ignited, take the roof off the house?

Surface tension

gives a drop its beaded shape,

a spill of water on a table its curved edge,

a fountain its shimmering sheets,

causes liquid to collect itself,

consolidate to take up the least space,

pull its skirts together from the gases around it.

Freed by detergent

bubbles disperse in the air

rainbow tides on their surfaces.