I
We had porridge and honey for breakfast and the sun
rose over the fields of County Mayo.
You drove your blue Peugeot through the arteries of Connemara.
I held one hand out the window, surfing the air, the other in your hair.
The Northwestern fields: salt, silage, slurry. The scent of the air freshener
the shape of the Virgin Mary; your breath when we kissed at stop signs.
We stayed the night in an old woman’s B&B. She greeted us in Irish.
We made love in the rickety double, just the other side of the wall from her.
II
We had porridge and honey for breakfast and the sun
rose over the fields of County Mayo.
While you drove, I admired the bog rose flying banners in the ditches.
In Westport, we mosied through the streets to the sea until you grew quiet.
You saw dolphins somewhere beyond, green octopi winking off the coast,
and you only told me afterwards, as soon as they’d departed.
That night we slept together between two round bales in a barn made of corrugate.
The animals looked on with sullen eyes. What must they have assumed?
III
We never made it to Achill or sheer Mweelrea, never gazed upon the Moy
because I woke up in a flat in Cork city, tired, never having left.
In bed alone, it all seems silly: your Peugeot, my hand, the Blessed Mother,
the clattering bed frame, the heartbreaking hamlets of Connacht
because I’ve never sniffed North of Galway, and you busted your car
on a bollard in that shopping centre carpark. I haven’t seen you in months.
But this morning, I had porridge and honey for breakfast
and still the sun rose over the fields of County Mayo.