The Gorko Gazette

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6.15.2026 6:36 AM

Finn McCool’s Wife by Mark Parsons

Finn McCool’s Wife

Promenades with her gentleman caller,
gathering up her smock
with her skirt and shift underneath
and leaping from hexagon column to column
of interlocking extruded basalt
like Q*bert and leading her latest suitor
and rival to husband, would-be
usurper
on, up and down
the terrain of a seafloor eruption,
undulate carpet
like bright stainless-steel pins
of a three-dimensional novelty toy
projecting the face of a child
whose delicate skin
still bears the sensation of
each cold pixel
impressed
to record a visage
as placid as Tutankhamen,
with features
exaggerated and thick,
an out of proportion death mask emoji,
or bar graph depicting
the geothermal event that occurred
eons ago,
far below, under the breakers,
bequeathing a family heirloom abounding and teeming
with fossil remains
of bivalve, crustacean, and cephalopod
exoskeletons. Every
projection of igneous rock
a separate fissuring
down
as the skin of the cumulus blossom of magma
escaping the vent on the cold
briny floor
was
suddenly cooled,
and a pattern of cracks on the surface
imbued and transfused through the subsequent discharge
a crystalline pattern, like glaze on a bowl,
capillaries
of crackle and craze
convergent where magma ballooned—
the magma becoming
mama,
who feeds infant Finn
fluffy, light griddlecakes, fresh,
right out of the pan,
adult
and unwitting,
infantile cosplayer Finn,
dressed in a onesie and swaddled in blankets—
no chipped teeth for Finn,
his wife Oona
leading the men who show up, in groups
or in tandem,
all the way out to the end
of her husband’s unfinished project,
which became her project,
the Giant’s Causeway.
No more nagging for Finn!

Finn McCool was an Irish giant and commander of the king of Ireland’s armies. He built the Giant’s Causeway, a formation of over 40,000—mostly hexagonal—basalt columns packed tightly together, which led to the island of Strafa, home of another giant whom Finn later took back to his home on north Antrim to be his wife. According to legend, Finn built the Causeway after being challenged to a fight by the Scottish giant Bennendonner, Finn built the Causeway to Strafa in order to meet Bennendonner halfway between their respective homes. Exhausted after his monumental labor, Finn fell asleep on the island. A lady giant who lived on Strafa spotted Finn while he was sleeping and dressed him in toddler’s clothes. When Bennendonner arrived the lady giant pretended that the sleeping, dressed-up Finn was in fact Finn’s son, and that Finn would be returning shortly. Bennendonner ran away, but not before tearing up much of the Causeway in order to prevent any future run-ins with Finn.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Mark Parsons‘ poems have been recently published or are forthcoming in Ex Pat Press, Dreich, Cape Rock, and I-70 Review. His books include Stills (Southernmost Books, 2023), Lake Tahoe is an Elegy, (Alien Buddha Press, 2024), Spiral (Anxiety Press, 2025), and The Kingdom of Middle Children (Southernmost Books, 2025). He lives in Tucson, Arizona. You can follow him on X @parsons_mfa or https://x.com/parsons_mfa