Sable Island 44ºN 60ºW
Jill MacLean ©2003
the island bends
to current, winds and wave,
marram grass
netting the dunes, which bury and disinter
seal rib, sparrow rib, rib of feral horse
arc of a dolphin’s spine, sand
where the heart was
at dusk, a yearling’s carcass
taints the air,
the mare’s first foal shivers in the wind,
its legs buckling, while
grey seals
enter the ocean single-minded as sperm,
in water their bodies flow
like water, and from the waves they watch you
tread unstable sand
in which garnets are ground small
at dawn, the mare lowers her head to her dead foal,
kicks at the stallion who’s nudging her along
later she wanders off to graze, wades
the western ponds
the foal moors a small dune
curve to your own mortality, see how
grasses grow through an empty hoof
and watch the migrant finch, its feathers
the blue of ocean, intensified
as a lens bends
sunlight to burning
