It’s more uncomfortable in the summer
Once the garden’s brainy branches are dressed
And the widow across the road
Starts practising flat piano.
On wasted evenings
While the smell of grilled meat sags against the
Glass, I am unsettled.
And when the rain comes from the west, falling
Dutifully on next door’s ball
Deflating in its bed of weeds, stopped,
I send you a text: ‘Remember Kilkee?’

The central heating clicks.

Kilkee: becuddled under rocks, watching
The sudden dark-circled Atlantic squirm,
Ambushed, uncoated, happy and wet,
Horizon black and blurred through wind-whipped eyes
Until you said we should head back, we might be cut-off,
And nowness and fear filled the gaps as we ran
Beachward to the sound of cloud and breath and
Convulsing sea and held hands and never lost our footing once.

Clocks count, plants wilt, paint peels, tea brews, dark falls.
The warming house sits silent as my phone.