Further out the sea is energetically darkened. There is the promise of a rotten afternoon. Till then, under a blue sky, tall gusts deny the tide and drive infernal milk across the rocks. The forecast might be wrong, but all the same I’ll twist my words: ‘We are promised rotten weather, you and I.’ On writing this I see that coastal water has consumed the anchor of my thinking. Clarity encircles, grips, combusts, and now the changing sea instructs us: ‘Look at these two lives.’ You, with your bronze moustache, your scarred articulate shoulders, your glossy air of clannish peace and long journeying wonder. And I, for love, almost identical.
Martin Dyar grew up in the West of Ireland. His second collection of poems, The Meek, is forthcoming from Wake Forest University Press. His debut collection, Maiden Names, was shortlisted for the Pigott Poetry Prize. He is the editor of the anthology Vital Signs: Poems of Illness and Healing, published by Poetry Ireland.
