Seal Poem

His family all dead
a lone brown seal toils against
the Corrib - that bitch - rushing mad to sea,
fast, humans are nauseous looking at her,
but the seal is heading upstream
like some kinda Sisyphus,
plodding up out of a wave
and plop, back in, the cold brown water
wants to kill our fellow mammal,
taker of suicides the river,
the seal snorts water back out
the nostrils,
not even evolved a blowhole,
more like an aquatic canine, our friend,
the strength of his spine
as he kicks his flippers, splosh,
is it for fish he angles over to the side
by the tower

^

Biography

Michael S. Begnal has been published in numerous journals, including Poetry Ireland Review, Translation Ireland, College Green, The Stinging Fly, Poetry Wales. He recently appeared in the anthology Breaking the Skin: Twenty-First Century Irish Writing (The Black Mountain Press). His collection The Lakes of Coma (Six Gallery Press, USA) is published in early 2003, while another collection, Ancestor Worship, is forthcoming from Salmon in 2004. He is editor of the Galway-based literary magazine The Burning Bush.