10 Mary Street
For nineteen years
We departed
Each morning, shut the house
Like a well-oiled lock,
Hit the key
Under a rusty bucket:
To school and work -
Over that still too-narrow bridge,
Around the factory
That was always burning down.
Back at 5p.m.
From the polite hum-drum
Of washing clothes
And laying sewerage pipes,
My parents watered
Plants - grew potatoes
And rows of sweet corn:
Tended roses and camellias
Like adopted children
Home from school earlier
I'd ravage the backyard garden
Like a hungry bird-
until, bursting at the seams
Of me little blue
St Patrick's College cap,
I'd swear to stay off
Strawberries and peas forever.
The house stands
In its china-blue coat -
With paint guaranteed
For another ten years.
Lawns grow across
Dug-up beds of
Spinach, carrots and tomato.
(The whole block
Has been gazetted for industry).
For nineteen years
We lived together -
Kept pre-war Europe alive
With photographs and letters,
Heated with discussion
And embracing gestures:
Visitors that ate
Kielbasa, salt herrings
And rye bread, drank
Raw vodka or cherry brandy
And smoked like
A dozen Puffing Billies
Naturalized more
Than a decade ago
We became citizens if the soil
That was feeding us -
Inheritors of a key
That'll open no house
When this one is pulled down.
