West – Cian Ferriter

West

You took me further west, out past Belmullet,
under a sky of milk and pewter
and blue eggs
in the rusting Mitsubishi Colt
you dubbed the Silver Bullet.

A day’s gallivanting
led us to an off-road inlet,
seaweed marmalading the black shore,
the panel-beaten sea
cresting like blown-free bunting.

You clowned about in rocks,
your parka two sizes too big,
your hands swallowed by its sleeves,
the lightning strips of your legs
earthed in black docs.

I took a photo of you loose
and skittish under a bare hawthorn,
eyes crossed, tongue hanging sideways,
your head lassoed
by the hood’s furry noose.

On the beach near where we stayed,
I fell over attempting a headstand,
surfaced dizzy in the storm-soar
of your laugh, lay on you, eyes closed
as the light began to fade.

You took me further west
to where I had not been before,
to where I fell down-ways,
side-ways, headlong
into your hidden, thumping nest.

…

Cian Ferriter lives in Dublin. He has won and been placed in a number of international poetry competitions. His debut pamphlet Earth’s Black Chute won the Munster Fools for Poetry International Chapbook Competition 2021 and will be published this May.