by Adam Wyeth

We skirt the edges
of the cove, scouring
crags at low tide,

combing back seaweed hair
braided with beads.
Up to our ankles

in rockpool–underworlds,
dark marbled–clusters,
olive–coloured jumbos

rise to the top,
blue–black backs
plonk into buckets, squelch

between fingers and thumbs
recoiling into shells
like tiny poems in their hidden worlds.

We lug a brimming bucket
back home and fill a pan,
watch them toil and bubble.

A sea–tanged steamed–wreathe
breathes its last. I fill a bowl
and with a pin open the doors

of their water–world,
picking out slimy whorls
doused in virgin olive oil,

washed down with white wine,
la petit mort de mer,
a little death at a time.

by Adam Wyeth

I’m lost in this world of crazy
kamikazes selflessly flinging
their harlequin bodies

against timber planks, panes
of glass and metal bars
to snuff out a spread of swine.

Wasted with flu,
the only thing I can do
is play a game on my phone

the single premise of which
is to catapult birds
against a litter of pigs

hidden in various structures.
Struck down with a fever
over a hundred, health

feels like a childhood
that can’t be recaptured.
Poorly, as the prodigal son

who squandered everything.
I can create chaos
with the stroke of my finger,

send raptors to collapse
complex constructions,
pickaxing and squawking

into scaffolding. Shooting starlings

explode into formations,
tumbling down on a battalion

of pug–nose snorters
who keep growing and dying
with every level of delirium.

I can only dream
that these feathered–friends
hold some answer —

that they are my deliverers
carrying me home.
Wherever that may be?

by John Walsh

Clouds settle close, shy of connecting,
no abruptness in the air. A fading mellow
before the grey moves in, haunting itself for the want
of things past, things lost, things better–not.
The drawn–out evening musters itself.
January hunkers in its corner, all banter gone,
all those illusions left untended.

There is certainty in the things expected of us
to say, to touch, to etch in circles, let drop.
There is no end to it, even when the grey merges,
negates the argument with indivisible proof.
Even when Moher recedes into its solid web —
not enough has been said, all the clues forthcoming
have been left unspun.

by Stephanie Conn

Back then we travelled around Ireland
with only a two–man tent in the boot.
We followed the light across hills of sand,
stopping to pop the taut flesh of a strawberry
into the other’s mouth, or halve a peach,
juice dripping from our tanned fingers.

Long before the Cliffs had a visitor centre
or charged for a view, we sat at the edge
watching a giant sun set fire to the sea,
and heard the gulls cry out from their nests.
That night I learned a waves longing for land,
to crash against porous rock, again and again.

I woke to the warmth of mid–morning and the
smell of damp grass and bacon, saw your back
curved over a small white stove. We ate eggs
together, in a milky silence, from a single fork.
Now, we stay in a hotel room for four, to save me
cooking breakfast. They serve eggs three ways.

This time we see the cliffs from below. They seem
higher; the people up there are smudged dots under
a grey sky. The heaving waves turn sight–seers green,
send them begging for plastic bags. I soothe our children.
Above deck, you set your feet apart to keep steady,
ready to photograph the jagged edge from every angle.

Later, you show me how the light shifts in a square screen.
These shots mean nothing to me — unlike the proofs I hold
in my head, of a burning sky and slim fingers entwined.
We brush our teeth in matching marble sinks. Tonight
I hush you — hold a finger to my puckered lips —
we cannot wait to retrace forgotten lines in the dark.