A MOONBEAM TRACKING ME
AS I SLEEP IN THE CABIN UNDER
THE MOON PORTHOLE I FITTED
OVER THE BERTH ABOVE THE HEAD
(FOR THIS TO HAPPEN)
I dream I lie
where I built the berth
(scared of a death bed,
where a portent is a solid position).
Light falls where I lie,
from the udder of the moon’s wasp nest,
(the moon,
a regurgitated globe of wood-pulped sun),
a formal geometry
I condone and use;
under the bright light
scanning a body,
masseur turned lover
bringing the lips to a face.
Cell creation:
the arrival that never arrives
but goes on
repairing the pod of the head;
a bonus of quiet repair.
I feel what I never finished,
clouds that erase brightness.
A slight, pale section of moon,
a change in the air
that sets down a stylus of beam,
a bright needle
that cuts to the heart,
in the crackle and hiss
that I sleep to and forget.
Sean Borodale is the current Adrian Brinkerhoff writer-in-residence at Poetry Ireland. His debut Bee Journal was shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize and the Costa Book Awards. His poetry is published by Jonathan Cape and includes the collections Human Work, Asylum and Inmates.
More work by Sean Borodale
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