Islands
These islands would float off were they not locked to the mainland
by bridges; if small boats did not occasionally
go out and nudge them back into place.
Beyond them there is only water and
the long conversation it has with itself.
Here is the end of the world. You can go
no further. This is where you must stop –
this outermost island, a scab of rock
that seems to have drifted away from the rest,
listening to the west wind's call
the way the dying listen to the faltering footsteps
of their breath as they turn into the home straight,
the finishing tape galumphing towards them
with its wish to be broken.
Frank Dullaghan is an Irish writer with four collections published by Cinnamon Press and a pamphlet by Eyeware Publishing. His fifth collection In the Coming of Winter is due out on August 2021. His work is widely published in international journals, including Borderlands; Crannog; Cyphers; HU; London Magazine; Magma; The Moth; New Contrast; Nimrod; Poetry Review; Rattle; and Voice & Verse.