Somewhere in a dark room
Mists are mistaken
For spiders webs
Softly sifting through the air
In beautiful motion, like
Those seahorses
Lovingly negotiating, the pull
And trusting language of the sea:
Its deep shifting tides
A grimy underpaid
Emigrant boy is printing yet
Another copy of Finnegan's
Wake.
He's never read a word
For his language
And the language of Joyce
Are very different.
On a break he exhausts
A cigarette
And traces the image
Of the words
Mysteriously
As if reading braille
While back in the room
The wings of a gallivanting blue-bottle
Surreptitiously kiss,
Into
A drifting web.