The clanking compound of the brewery

– where Dad did casual shifts

when building work was scarce –

is buried now beneath the floors

of a multi-storey car park

and chat that drifts across

from cappuccino pavements.

 

Born to a scant inheritance

of rushy Sligo acres, my dad was bred

like his brothers to follow the work,

sending remittances home

from London, Reading and Philadelphia –

for worklessness

would have been defining shame.

 

And somewhere in the hinterland

of just-remembered childhood

I am watching a drayman

as he guides heraldic horses

through a time-thinned stream of traffic.

Their sinews barely tensed,

they go unfussed about their business.