Long-distance call

The light is long and low
and static in the Irish sky,
forming Atlantic currents of memory that catch the cross-country coach,
that send it swimming in the self-bound surf.

Your call breaks the electric silence
of childhood, of waiting, of adolescence
like a premature tidal jump,
your father adrift and unweighted.
I condole, at loss for the language
that rushes to fill the rock-pools∎

Art by: Eve Rooney. Words by: Orna Rifkin.