St. Patrick's Purgatory (Feb. 2004)

I swam down Oran’s Well to find
The islands that he shored there, the
Gods he named as they ebbed, like surf
Through his hands. I was warned not to
Fall asleep in that hollow, but I did;
It crept over me like a curved
Sweetness, the muse who writes that low
Psalm on every longing heart. When I
Woke I could never quite dry my
Meters of that wash, and now walk
My days harrowed by Oran’s haul,
Drowned in a long-lost coracle.
Hot torch now upside down, skull that
Won’t shut up: The wages of my sin
Are seas I daily fill within.