Lime Rick

Limed and loaded, rhymed and ready

Thursday, May 08, 2008

Athlone, County Meath

The garrison is vacant now, the change
from conqueror to nationhood complete.
We loll along the river walk and gape
at misfit architecture, totting up
duplicities and massacres that range
from side to side, and tossing the conceit
that we can understand; it’s like the shape
of tea, turbulent in its paper cup.

And then the van arrives, in shimmered slate.
These salmon hesitate to run the weirs;
although the netting’s gone, the sight still scares,
so, milt and roe released, they congregate,
suspended between transitory heres,

and mere histories, neither ours nor theirs.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home