Polignano a Mare
Cold of the sea surf washes over us
As we sit on a rock
A Wicklow man
rescue team member on mountain trails
trains his eye
on a boy
gangly and good natured
shy to be the center of attention but relief
washes over him as our Wicklow man rises
out of the sea like
an Irish god, yellow locks
wet down an ample back that the boy is soon
making sweet use of as the act of mercy is performed
on the shifting rocks, the boy hopping on one foot, smiling
even now
with his Italian visit in tatters, his ankle, what has drawn our
hero’s eye, swollen to three times its normal size, something
the boy has not seen or felt before
but known all too well by the Irishman of the Wicklow trails.
“I have seen a fair thousand of these,” he says with a light
glowing from somewhere inside, not leaving the boy until
the story takes a turn toward a direction that is familiar and sound.
Next: Running for Your Life: Promise of
Paradise Found
