I’ve never forgotten the Glen river’s  

smell on those wet Donegal days.

Its convoluted arteries drained

through bogs of purple heather,

to emerge in petrichor and painterly swirls.

Just boys, we traipsed its fern banks

on mizzled days with wet feet

squelching. Off balance, our eyelines

like gunsight, skimming black stones

in flat counts to the far bank.

Our...

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It was the copper-green crust on 

salt fingers that hinted

the well was dry.

It had been months, years even,

of arid unconscious blessings.

A ritual, like the quick of bitten nails,

formed in the dousing of us weans.

It had been our mother’s blessing, 

foreheads drenched on each departing. 

Her three fingered aspergillum

observed from the flickering neon.

Bles...

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