mary desmond
From the black height of Atlantis
From the black height of Atlantis you dived
a seabird plunge into promising waters
I at the shore, wrapped in borrowed garments
immaculate white, reflecting the heat
still a sudden breathless knot-bite of loss
the prising open before you emerged.
Only later, pressed to your skin there came
the slow blood-trickle of rapid descent.
I buried you with stones, laid them over
each visible part, gently, one by one
the shape of you took years to submerge
beneath an eternal spread of stone pine.
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