Matt Gillick
Our tour bus dug through a hedged edge
of Wicklow highway, sunny petals
brushed against the window.
Out from distant thatch arose a lady;
a bog lady in the wrong story.
She ran to us, naked,
blonde hair sprinkled the hills.
Pale skin, pale running skin,
like she was fleeing St. Kevin’s
cave—mortified at his decline—
to drown herself in the lake
while he broods with God in the damp dark.
Knees red and patched, her muddy
hands waved at us as we drove by—
slow down, please.
She fell into a drainage ditch,
disappeared into waist-high bilge,
apparated back to her still bog—or
dissolved, leaving nothing but salt
used to make pretty little flowers
so she, too, could be a pretty thing
to pass by on the way to Glendalough.