Kate Clanchy

Patagonia
I said perhaps Patagonia, and pictured

a peninsula, wide enough

for a couple of ladderback chairs

to wobble on at high tide. I thought
of us in breathless cold, facing

a horizon round as a coin, looped

in a cat's cradle strung by gulls

from sea to sun.

I planned to wait
till the waves had bored themselves to sleep,

till the last clinging barnacles,

growing worried in the hush,

had paddled off in tiny coracles,

till those restless birds,

your actor's hands,

had dropped slack into your lap,

until you'd turned, at last, to me.

When I spoke of Patagonia,

I meant
skies all empty aching blue.

I meant years.

I meant all of them

with you.