Sinéad Morrissey

It never looks warm or properly daytime in black-and-white photographs the sheer cliff- face of the ship still enveloped in its scaffolding backside against the launching cradle ladies lining the quay in their layered drapery touching their gloves to their lips and just as They That Go Down to the Sea in Ships rises from choirboys’ mouths in wisps and snatches and evil skitters off and looks askance for now a switch is flicked at a distance and the moment swollen with catgut- about-to-snap with ice picks hawks’ wings pine needles eggshells bursts and it starts grandstand of iron palace of rivets starts moving starts slippery-sliding down slow as a snail at first in its viscous passage taking on slither and speed gathering in the Atlas-capable weight of its own momentum tonnage of grease beneath to get it waterborne tallow soft soap train oil a rendered whale this last the only millihelen her beauty slathered all over the slipway faster than a boy with a ticket in his pocket might run alongside it the bright sheet of the Lough advancing faster than a tram heavy chains and anchors kicking in lest it outdoes itself straining up to a riot of squeals and sparks lest it capsizes before its beginning lest it drenches the aldermen and the ship sits back in the sea as though it were ordinary and wobbles ever so slightly and then it and the sun-splashed tilted hills the railings the pin-striped awning in fact everything regains its equilibrium.