I. 

A photo my father gave me thirty years ago: gray remains 
of his great-grandfather’s house west of Belfast, wet stone 
necklace fastened around a Ballyscullion hill. Time and again, 
I unearth it from a box, carry it past graduation, marriage, 
my daughter’s birth—resurrect John Ballentine, fifteen-year-old 
boy driven by hunger to stand—Irish son—in cold lines 
on Ellis Island, pale loaves of steam for breath.

II.

When we cannot find the house, my husband and I turn 
our rental car toward Finn McCool’s road. Do you want 
to stay married? he asks, but I have no wish to remain wife. 
Ten years ago, we spoke vows but now wonder why husbands 
and wives must bury themselves beneath law. Better, surely, 
to hold hands and jump a branch—marriage as the offspring 
of seasons, not government—or stand on rocks and promise 
to flame love’s spell unto the spell’s natural death. Along 
the hem of County Antrim, basalt wriggles through fissures, 
thousands of black wands binding land to sea. 

III.

My third-grade teacher once told a story of drowning, 
how he struggled in white water then resigned his body 
to the current. In so doing, he grew lighter and saved himself.

IV.

On the early ferry departing Dublin, we make the best 
of sitting upright in morning hours. Some passengers 
sleep, others bend to omelets and toast. The captain 
says technology will reduce our rocking, but I am hungry 
to feel this vessel earn her way across hard waves. 

V. 

One hour left to Holyhead when my husband wakes 
smiling, red hair askew, fiery vestige of Viking roots.
I reach for his hand, knowing it will be cold on that Welsh dock. 
This floating parlor makes a family of strangers: babies 
cry, newspapers shake, the sun slathers butter across the Irish Sea. 
In pajamas, a little girl toddles with her doll to the window 
and plugs its mouth with a passy. She gazes placidly ahead—
little mother, young lover, weathering her passage.