        44°N 60°W

the island bends
to current, wind and wave,
                         marram grass
netting the dunes, which bury and disinter
seal rib, sparrow rib, rib of feral horse
        arc of a dolphin's spine, sand
where the heart was

at dusk, a yearling's carcass
      taints the air,
the mare's first foal shivers in the wind,
its legs buckling, while

                        grey seals
enter the ocean single-minded as sperm,
       in water their bodies flow
like water, and from the waves they watch you
tread unstable sand
in which garnets are ground small

at dawn, the mare lowers her head to her dead foal,
kicks at the stallion who's nudging her along

later she wanders off to graze, wades
the western ponds

      the foal moors a small dune

curve to your own mortality, see how
grasses grow through an empty hoof
      and watch the migrant finch, its feathers
      the blue of ocean, intensified
as a lens bends
sunlight to burning

From "The Brevity of Red" a collection of poems by Jill MacLean,
published by Signature Editions, 2003.

Jill MacLean presently lives in Halifax. Her work has been published in a number of

poetry journals in Canada; The Brevity of Red is her first collection. In 2004, it was

short-listed for the Atlantic Poetry Prize. Jill visited Sable Island in spring 1999.

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