Outside the grey church in Galway
congregants, released by the bells, cross the bridge
without a glance down to the water
or the swans. But the fishermen,
waist-deep in the slate and sudden water,
genuflect toward the river in hope of fish.
I stop to watch their lines
carve quarter moons out of the sky
pulled down to meet the wave-tips
and tossed high again—a night passing
with each motion. The fuchsia flirts gaudy
skirts and purple petticoats over every wall.
What color was the river on the day
my great-great-great-grandmother fled Ireland,
a child on the coffin ships? Here I am,
a stranger to my mother’s womb.
A knife-gash of oxygen in the gills
lodges in my throat. Caught,
a fish rises into a world
that cannot sustain its body.
