Cu Chulainn, the summer disfigures me. When
the soil swells with that impossible heat and the air
clings to my alveoli and sticks you collect to, as
some residue, some form of subtle irritation lining
my pores and blossoming in the blisters of my
feet, in the cranberry burns singed across my skin.
I drown in the arid stillness while you spasm
in the lush, the soft roll of hill to mountainside that
must have been too smooth to bear. Hound killer,
intangible monster, ravager of the fields of Emain
and seeker of eternal fame, I can see your distorted
figure in the swirls of the stucco walls, trapped
in the knolls of the whimpering floorboards.
America calls for you, all of us diluted Irish, the
dislocation of Giant’s Causeway, honeycomb
fragments strewn from sea to shining sea.
This was originally published in Spring 2018 edition of The Helix.
