We needed one another for salvation
But Senan didn’t know that, shrieked and wept
When I rowed out to his island in the Shannon,
And he wild haired, half nude, all dirty—
He would have thrown me to the tide except
He was too pure to touch a woman’s body.
In time my love woke his, his deepened mine.
We peeled each other’s hearts to innocence:
Naked to God, we shone like seraphim.
And now I see my bones as white as any man’s
Below the golden soil and smile content
At Senan’s daily softening grief, like Adam’s
When he remembered Eve returning through
The dusk, oblivious of the creeping shadow.