The Stoats

 

We were like stoats stealing,

rush blooded and whispering feet

 

out of the hot and stale flock in the den,

sharpened by the nostril burn of the new night.

We didn’t belong to the black water

 

but worshipped its lateral sluice and revival

and worshipped the dark within the darker

shadows, the monsters and prey that kicked upstream.

 

We dipped our paws and leaned into the strange

pull and draw on out around the bend and down

into the peace of sealed pockets made by bottom stones,

weighed under by the silence of our own pelts.

 

Stay and tumble with the current awhile, all upturned

and head down and flushed up at a different bank.

 

Come be baptised, splashing in and out in the name

of the father, son, and holy spirit. Damping back

brimming to the den again, this time.

Daragh is a light-skinned man with a brown and gray beard and brown glasses. He is bald and wears a light-colored sweater. Behind him is blurred foliage.

Daragh Hoey is an Irish emigrant who has lived on the West, East, and Gulf Coasts of America. He studied at Dublin City University and the University of Houston and is, for now, settled in Seattle with his wife, son, cat, and the local rivers and inlets. Daragh’s poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Solstice Magazine, Midway Journal, Wild Roof Journal, and others.