– 62 –

The Maritime Cook

Here lupin hides lost items
of the ocean’s rusting tackle.
Beyond these chains and flukes
is a bach I have my eye on,
a shed built into clay
and roosted in drab flax.

Feeney was once in a film
with Ustinov and Mitchum.
When he came into The Grand
it was with a toey shuffle
he made seem heroic—
Black Irish, square-templed,
he had a broken nose
the shape of a pawn or key.

He burned himself to death
with magnificent negligence.
Among the many things I seek,
the many reliefs I crave,
is illusion of the imminence of rain,
the first scant scratches of drizzle
on asphalt or pane.