Portbou
After Mary Jean Chan
Reminded of my body by the climb
I feel the sun, its love and anger,
a baked red brick rubbed
on the back of my calves.
Hiking in a binder was a shit idea,
My lungs reach to surface, come short.
There’s a sweat mirage on the camera.
A road you’d find in a motorbike advert
winds down to the sea, too far
below to hear. Cicadas sing
with their whole bodies, all-round
vision hidden in the scrub.
Just when I think I’ve gone wrong
dabs of paint show the trail
ascending still. I reach
the ridge. The sea is so blue
I want to show it to someone.
Cal O’Reilly (he/they) is an English with Creative Writing undergraduate at Queen’s University Belfast. His work appears in Cyphers Magazine, Impossible Archetype, The Poetry Review and The Irish Times.