Hy-Brasil / by Kathleen McCoy
in memory of Carole Dunson Moreau
A big-hearted brainy broad born
to be a teacher went to bed last night
and never rose again, yet the sun
dares shine without her. Chocolate
turns to sand, to salt, to silt and still
the earth is green. Hands must
stroke the open wound to know
what’s real–how Venus burns
brightly because sulphuric acid
reflects the rays of sun. How the isle
of Hy-Brasil knits an Aran mist
whose molecules have passed through
St. Brendan and Molly Brown alike.
How it disappears after five hundred years,
unuttered word at tongue’s moist tip, then
rises from the sea, transmogrified
in fog and crystal skies. In dreams she still
wears streaks of summer in her hair,
inscribes notes of succor with a purple pen
her smile wide as the ocean between us.
The Real McCoy 