The old New Street was young,
when you emerged
from a platform underground
into the shopping centre, headed
through all that argy-bargy
down a ramp to the Bull Ring.
Listening for connections.
Trying on your family overcoat,
its hand-me-down identity
comfortable yet ill-fitting.
Twelve years long enough
to lose the falling intonation.
Not the voice you had received.
Minding how you spoke.
Even in the hush of night,
nine months on, you wouldn’t care
to be betrayed by a bróg.
Or get blown through the wall
of a basement bar.
Your limbs all mangled in rubble.
Nor find yourself sleepless
in a cell. Beaten and burnt
like those luckless fellas
picked up at Heysham Port.
A lesson in the banner headline
of their six battered faces.
From a 31st floor flat,
your point of view
unfolded along the Hagley Road,
where someone’s third bomb
had been made safe.
Buying there, for Granda,
distant local papers – the Western People,
a Connacht Tribune when you could.
In the rustle of those broadsheets,
you heard his exile.
i. 2022
