Not dancing, but prone, and jacked high
on the sea, the surfer is shaving
foam off the top shelf, spurting
off, and now, dangling his legs
from the board. With sceptre-points
touching him, regal calm, long ago
mounted, and calved from the sea,
brings him back to the oily bread
and cheese here in the marram.
But look out, surfer, get what we get:
everything good in life, lives as if
after its death, and the good wave,
running green and milky, in a flat calm,
is the only wave worth the wait.
Kevin Cahill is a poet from Cork
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[See also: Natalia Ginzburg’s small worlds]
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This article appears in the 24 Aug 2022 issue of the New Statesman, The Inflation Wars