ebb tide

At the ebb tide

moonlight smears

the whispering Colligan

along the tide mark

on Abbeyside strand

a woman walks alone

in the chill night

she drags her feet

snaring seaweed

rasping prickly cockles

leaving shards of shells
in the footveined sand

she’d given him a feed

of Ballinacourty spuds

before the trawler left

the strand is her hourglass

of worry as she waits

for sight of the boat