At the Glass Factory in Cavan Town
Today it is a swan:
The guide tells us
these are in demand.
The glass is made
of red lead and potash
and the smashed bits
of crystal sinews
and decanter stoppers
crated over there—
she points—and shattered
on the stone wheel
rimmed with emery.
Aromas of stone and
fire. Deranged singing
from the grindstone,
and behind that
a mirror—my
daughters’ heads turned
away in it—garnering
grindstone and fire.
The glass-blower goes
to the furnace.
He takes a pole
from the earth’s
core: the earth’s core
is remembered in
the molten globe at
the end of it.
He shakes the pole
carefully to and fro.
He blows once. Twice.
His cheeks puff and
puff up: he is
a cherub at the very
edge of a cornice with
a mouthful of zephyrs—
sweet intrusions into
leaves and lace hems.
And now he lays
the rod on its spindle.
It is red. It is
ruddy and cooler.
It is cool now
and as clear as
the distances of this
county with its drumlins,
its herons, its closed-
in waterways on which