Mixed by an alchemist,
with all the prized magic
of exotic origins:
eggshells and the shells
of umbilical fish.
Their own origins –
his the lanes of Limerick,
hers Scunthorpe’s steely breath –
have brought them to this:
this place,
this date.
And what they hold,
fragile and precious ,
is the making of a marriage
come of age
with years of infusing myths,
inventing and reinventing
the etching in of imperfections –
a dizzying, crazy-making dance
between pilfering and piracy
and the bounty of spice and silken threads.
But now, washed by salty sea
they stand, with sand beneath their feet
and sky above
and find a place,
unglazed, unspoilt, untouched.
Beyond the shimmer of cowry shell
and shame of dubious trades,
there is, and always was,
an honest clay-like love.
