Ireland

by Kathleen Ossip

For two hours we sat on the plane and waited and a half.
Three. We took off. We flew over the dark.
You were a girl and we were flying. At home in Dublin
the first day and everyone and in the 70s and sunny.
The clouds rubbed on sea light, “a real Irish summer.”
Why two wolfhounds, two pigs, two swans?
How a dolphin for a shark? You gasped in alarm for the Cliffs
of Moher, the contraltos, selfies in the sweater you bought in Killarney.

Your Tumblr page; the handknotted sweater. The summer nearby.
We interpreted the swans and the dolphin, which you at first mistook.
Our hair frizzed in the chilly mist. I wondered how you would
stand me. We saw blossom and so were you. How unusual it was!
Our nips sharpened in the chill. Turf of our ancestors fortified
by the midnight pizza. The Atlantic fumed. You were fourteen,
how would you stand? Or how should contraltos sound in nearby summer
on our girls’ journey that in the beginning the flight delayed?

Published on December 22, 2015