The Harbour in January

By Caitriona O’Reilly

Maybe this landscape never frowned

and spoiled its early blue face.

Above, like an arched eyebrow,

a single crow makes broken circles.

Birds in the hedge confer in boiling voices.1. hedge: 树篱；confer: 商谈。

It takes a large design to displace

mercury-heavy2. mercury-heavy: 重金属汞。rolls like these—

water relaxing its folds of fabric3. fabric: 布，织物。.

It sees us bend from cockpit or quayside4. cockpit: 驾驶员座舱；quayside: 码头边。

and gives us shivering bodies, splintered5. splintered: 裂成碎片的。

faces and hands. We aren’t ourselves in it.

Like a glamorous6. glamorous: 充满冒险性的。uncrossed desert,

the sea’s of mobile feature. Any ship’s legacy

is a smile that widens and complicates

and gapes7. gape: 敞开。to take in all the bay and me—

not of the sea, not in it, just looking on

at how the purple undertow8. undertow: （海浪涌上海滩破碎后形成的）回卷，退浪。reveals itself

in surfacing, in lapsing platinum9. platinum: 银灰色。.

也许这风景从不蹙眉

并且破坏它从前蓝色的面庞。

天空中，如拱起的眉毛，

一只乌鸦在断断续续地盘绕。

鸟儿们在树篱中热烈讨论。

制定计划，打算迁徙

充斥着重金属汞的海浪翻滚着——

浪花在层层波浪的皱褶中缓和下来。

看着我们从舵舱或码头转弯

映射着我们颤抖的身体，碎片般的

手和脸。在海水中我们已经不是自我。

就像充满冒险性的未穿越的沙漠，

大海具有流动性。任何船只的残骸

微笑着，欢快地，复杂地

打着哈欠，收容海湾的一切和我——

不包括大海，和大海中的一切，只是注视着

紫色的退浪留下什么，

在海浪的表面，沉下一层银灰色。