Dublin

The sun still glares in mid-December
Daring us to hope the rain won’t come.

Office blocks breathe out their workers.
Cheap suits and phone-bent faces.

The great hooks on the quays lie immovable.
Dublin is always coming loose from itself.

Yellowed faces push forward on the gum speckled streets
Straining to escape their poisoned bodies.

The Luas pauses to catch it’s breath
A gentle whale.

Shrouded figure in the grounds of Christchurch.
Soldered onto the soul of the city.
Tourists take pictures and do not see the cold toes of the children who sleep in cars.

And all the children who barely cried
Before they died in crowded houses
Claw at my hair
As I weave through this
Hill hugged city
Built on want
And violence.

Fill the cracks in the pavement with gold.
Rev the city up to its fullest.
Pour me into the Liffey when the tide is high.
Deep and down.
Let me enter Dublin’s bones.
Swaddle me in there, dark and burning.
Bright with the glow of home.