Blue Air

Dublin light, yesterday’s dress.

Frost-locked February dawn. I press my face to the window as the conductor mutters through the carriage about delays. My cheekbone turns numb, my lips. ‘Signal failure’ he says. Last night the stars were clean as bone against the Atlantic dark. Both sleepless – whip of sea, your voice as heat before sound. Today – white oblongs, white oblongs slip past. Stone walls pen dead sheep; a spire breaks through blue. Boarded stations, their water towers still standing. A child with chapped cheeks drives a toy train over the seat’s horizon. In the window, sparks of blue – my own eyes watching me leave. I let her go. Still in yesterday’s dress. I keep my ticket folded in my palm, tuck your face in my pocket, pressed against strangers. Dublin’s grey light pulls me eastward, away from the shore where we stood under all that brightness.

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