Rathlin Island, Northern Ireland

Across the handsaw drawn—as across the world
now seems—her fiddlebow—a whetting, whittling down
to two dimensions—a plane edge-toothed as ocean’s own—
horizon-fretted—wind aslant a treeless (I would
have you listen to it) island—back/forth—(how, o
do you, how to tell you?)—Ariel—(slit-bound)—
as once your forefinger set a wine glass humming—bone-
less, lungless sprite fast in the cloven pine-rings wailed

& bent his pitch (how high?) within that windbent tree—so
that night her saw—sighting, aligning, sliding between—
shrieked out (still never cross the grain) the Lilliputian
stars—made of the room, walls, floorboards, table, us, a mouth—
an echo chamber—until we heard our worldsend through
the crack-(my heart)(she played Amazing Grace)-less distance.