My father was a boyo, so he was
with his hand in the currant sack
sneaking a thick slick of yellow butter
on spicy-sweet brack
oh he was a boyo, so he was.
Here is my father:
a thin boy on a bike
with a cow's lick and an easy smile,
bone-white. God, his sweet unlined
St Anthony face.
And here is my father, writing with a
fist clenched thick
and reading aloud with finger-spaces
between words.
But when he sings
his half-song voice becomes
a song full-sung
of Derry and Wicklow and Mayo and more,
of love and green fields and murder and shame,
and his quivering holy notes soar.
Here he is again:
painting the Tyne Bridge green
or digging a road greased like a seal's wet pelt.
The 4am sky is magpie blue
and we are in bed somewhere else
forty motorway miles away
dreaming of our daddy.
My father doesn’t drink because it was
No Good For Him, oh no
No Good At All.
When he drank he said he was
dead to the turning world
numb to the seasons and the
loveliness of trees.
Today he pruned a tangle of gorse
heavy-hung with flowers and flies.
Today he cut the summer's last roses,
petals curled and browning,
and gave them to a neighbour.
***
There is no word in Irish for Yes
only I am, I do.
My father is. My father does.
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