Alchemisland

We wanted to settle for something less

We wanted to get what we were able

Not what we had saved for, only what was available

But we sailed through times sable, out we made it

Just like my mother and her saints prayed for

Two of you, a third place at table, who is it laid for?

Do you see how that lad’s playing on lane four?

First of many strikes, pins falling like idols before missile strikes

Aoife and Mike out seeing gaffs, on the proverbial bike a while

Considering going further out, well and truly in the wilds

We could but exhale our bile, see these vile

Houses and say we liked them, in deep denial

Not just a river in Egypt, that’s not our script

We ripped it up into little bits

Let it dandruff our shoulders, like confetti onto wedding fits

Sealed like loverlips, light so strong we run for cover

A smothering golden colour, all darkness plundered

A sense of lightness, like before you go under

A muggy sense of potential, air charged before thunder

My mother must have said a hundred rosaries

We had seriously scaled back, buying only groceries

Make the most of it, it’ll come good like I told you

We dipped more than a toe, it wasn’t for show

This wasn’t us just going through the motions

Now my skin prickles, my blood fast flowing

This past day we bid on, and went sale agreed, on a green place in Wicklow

And not before time, my melancholy lantern so deeply stowed

Started showing; its infectious, malefic glow,

Like when Balor’s eye is fully open.

I felt low, I sensed the fading glow of my candle, its wick lowered

I would see others happy and could but glower.