Ireland

Dumping (left over from the autumn)
Dead leaves, near a culvert
I come on
a British Army Soldier
With a rifle and a radio
Perching hiding. He has red hair.

He is young enough to be my weenie
-bopper daughter’s boy-friend
He is like a lonely little winter robin.

We are that close to each other. I
Can nearly hear his heart beating.

I say something bland to make him grin,
But his glass eyes look past my side—
Whiskers down
the Shore Road street.
I am an Irish man
and he is afraid
That I have come to kill him.

–Padraic Fiacc (1924 -             )
(Patrick Joseph O’Connor)