Self-Portrait: Connemara

by Betsy Sholl

Just one leg in a doorway, nothing more.
Outside the full moon, salt air bracing,
so we put on jackets and went to see —

our friend insisting we leave the window
and enter the night.  Just my left leg
still on that threshold, the rest of me off

with the others on the dirt road, the rocks
below rumbling in surf, and the moon
slipping through a thin cloud as it climbed.

No picture of dinner, barely begun and left
on the counter.  Though the afternoon
even now is fresh in my eyes —

Sky Road, the wide stretch of glittering sea,
light’s dazzle across islands and cliffs,
the moment’s tide still rising.  As to this photo

made by a thumb slip as we rushed out the door,
most of me was already gone — into runoff
and seepage, into spindrift, moon scatter.

We left squash on the counter, cubed and ready
to be baked with an apple and whatever else
we ate that night, which I have forgotten,

though it nourished us, it’s helped me arrive
at this moment, this wave rising to a curl
before it tips and crumbles into bright foam.