At the performance of Merce Cunningham's Ocean
In the Waterfront Hall the coral-coloured dancers
Drenched my head with silence and whale messages
And made me feel like a frogman on dry land.
There was room for only one midget submarine
In the roof space where my mind had floated, and where
Swimming from the Falls Road Baths to Singapore
Mick Magennis emerged in his frogman's suit,
Oxygen leaking in tell-tale bubbles up to heaven,
His expression unfathomable behind the visor
But his modest thumbs-up confirming that, yes,
He had stuck limpet mines on the cruiser.
Alongside dog-paddling, ballet-dancing polar bears,
Penguins like torpedoes, dolphins in two and threes,
Sea otters, seals, Mick was formation-swimming and At home in the ocean's cupola above my head.
