Portable

for Tex Avery

we are seven young men

in two cars

in May

full of growth

and gripe

and anticipation

and it is dark on the Friday

when we get to the house in Keel

for the stag weekend

the games promptly begin

and twenty hard hours later

loose with exhaustion

we climb to the shepherd’s hut

on the cliffs

above the stashed treasure

of Keem beach

and we see it then at last

waiting for us

lying across the sky

like a lover

that has nowhere else to be

I am stopped

everything I remember as colour

has taken sides

the distant judgement of blue

waits cool and soft

over shadow and heather

inland

across the island of Achill

where survival and beauty

sway back and forth

like tide and moon

and out to sea the world

is kissed

a red mouth of fading sun

on the paper skin of clouds

on the hot fur of the ocean

a red that speaks crimson

indelible words

of edge

of friendship

of the charges of time

of things that are ours to return

and the next day

we drive for home

unloaded

I announce my arrival

my headphones on

I mow the lawn

in warm evening sun

while David Bowie

gives me more than the gist

I have reached

temporarily at least

another side

and it seems the portable hole

that sits comfortably

at centre of my being

has moved off

to sit comfortably

somewhere else for a while

Portable © 2022 Fergus Deffely