More Sarah Maguire

What do I remember? — a litany of whiskies:

Lagavulin, Laphroaig, Talisker, Aberlour,
The Macallan ...

"Uisge Beatha" (from Spilt Milk)

I've drunk all of those except Aberlour. :-)

*

Maguire's poem "Perfect Timing" (also from Spilt Milk) starts like this:

The night I fell in love with you I lost my watch:

What a splendid opening! I was quite excited to read it, but my excitement deflated immediately:

stripping off at the sea's edge, it fell into the dark

Is it just my déformation professionelle (I'm an English teacher at the University of Basel) that I notice the dangling participle? — "It" refers to "the watch", but the watch did not "strip off at the sea's edge". The poem was ruined for me.

But to be fair, I should post the whole poem, which is otherwise quite memorable (I even found it on a web page, so someone remembered it well enough to type it in):

PERFECT TIMING

The night I fell in love with you I lost my watch:
stripping off at the sea's edge, it fell into the dark
as I swam out into a night thick with stars,
with fisherman calling from one lit boat to another
of their catches and harbours, leaving for the dawn.
Imagine it now, plunged deep in cool sand, still hidden
years later, grains ticking over it one by one—
as your hands slide into me and I move to their pulse.