​Poeteen

​
That morning in Muckross her man
drove them from the B & B not far
from sea caves they explored
the night before during lingering May
sunset, following village road
more like dirt path until after
a swooping turn they beheld 
a cove sun-laved and sparkling 
as though Ireland had forgotten 
her mists.  Such a calm shelter 
within the rebel ocean off
County Donegal, luring them
to wade and swim and pick up
shiny stones and shells 
for when they were back 
in America’s Catskills whose
great sea was lost centuries ago.

She called this one of her homelands,
she with Irish ancestress and feeling
ancient connection to the shamrock isle.
They played in the waters like two seals, 
felt metamorphosed into man and woman
when they climbed back up the
low cliff where they met Frank
who turned out to be ninety-one,
a fisherman until three years ago.  
They talked back and forth
like the sparkles leaping
across the waves, and when
Frank learned she was a poet
he invited them into his house
to drink poteen with Himself
and Margaret his wife
like him old but young. 

O that poteen he poured them,
halfway up the little glasses, clear
as spring water where the fairies
commune by the holy wells.  
She sipped the Muckross moonshine
distilled above peat the people
in County Donegal still cut and dug up 
for warmth of many kinds.
Frank and Margaret said 
it was made of barley when she
marveled over the hint of taste
her tongue could not quite define,
maybe petrol about to glint
into flame.  Her mate kept joking
about her seeking the fairies 
whenever they stopped at
“those stone circles.”  Fierce
she pouted, “We didn’t see them
because of your mockery.
Fairies won’t approach anyone 
who doubts they exist.”

Her very first poteen tasting 
of the fires of poetry, 
of the first time she ever wrote …
and at first she imagined
Frank’s and Margaret’s smiles
and eyes twinkling as much 
as the cove that day 
had to do with her fairy story.  
But then she started sliding
off Earth’s mothering curve,
felt shoulder blades
sprouting wings,
so she put down gently
her little glass and chirped
through lips becoming beak,
“I really appreciate the poteen
you gave me, but if I drink 
one more drop I shall see
a hundred fairies dancing!”

Only Herself tweeted “poeteen”
and the dapper fisherman 
and his dancing darling 
of over seventy years 
laughed and laughed.