In this broad church of reeds and grasses
at the north-west tip of Booterstown Marsh
two marker posts wait for a lick
of Hammerite or windy gloss
to cosy up like a ruined script,
to connive in a channel or spit
like that cut from Leitrim’s village wharf
or the eel-like shimmy of the lonely
Scarriff River, but stall mid-sentence
bumping up against the blacktop
of an endless grey-green Bayeux
scrolling tall tales from ribbons of chrome
a tickertape stuttering morse
like mustard seeds snagged in a fingernail
or a path to nowhere trying to atone
with false exits blurred in mist and rain.
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