A VISIT
Sick of the living
I went looking for the dead.
Doesn’t everybody
end up in a graveyard
to get some peace?
I paid my grandparents a visit.
I looked at their grave
and watched a cabbage white dance
and the light catch on Quartz.
I imagined warm hugs
the smell of pipe and baked bread
I wondered what they’d say
what they'd make of all of this?
A few plots down
a big oul fella states
'Graveyards are lonely places'
Then through some chat
extracts my roots.
'You're the Shoemaker' he reveals
saying he was a friend of mine
Some connection down the line
Between my granny and his.
He was visiting his brother who
worked all over England and Wales
built motorways and canals
and said that Dublin was the roughest
place he was ever in.