My first love
Was the winding cobbled streets
And shouts in the summer time
Proclaiming of pots filled with strawberries
Lined up for slaughter
With teeth stained by tea
Three for a fiver
My first love
Was the ornate black lampposts
Reflected in the rain-filled footpaths
And the splash of feet running fast
As their bus trundles past
And I look out the top window
And watch them with a hood up
Red cheeks blazing from the cold
My first love
Was the brown, ochre leaves
Lining the streets
And the walk through Stephen’s Green
Becoming nothing more than a symphony
Of death and nature and the old man
That sleeps on the bench
Naming the tamed pigeons
His family
My first heartbreak
Was the railing lined with
Petrol station flowers
And each news report filled
With blood
The curves and corners
They talk about
So different
From the ones that made me
My first heartbreak was
Watching the streets
Become more than home to me
But a house to someone else
And children with bare feet clutching
Paper cups dissolving in the rain
And under the weight of
This busy, bustling city.
My first heartbreak was
My discovery
That Dublin hasn’t been as kind to everyone
As it has been to me
