Periwinkles

Long after pollution was confirmed, you insisted 
on picking periwinkles by the Bull Wall. 
We swapped them in the kitchen for fresh ones 
from Thomas’s fish stall in Mary Street. 
And when you went out door-to-door for Fianna Fáil, 
they thought your northern accent helped to swell 
the brand of softer nation they were selling. 
Dev had been betrayed and those treaty chaps 
were led astray, forgetting the sacrifice of the sixteen. 
The inheritance was clear, a straight line right back 
from there to here and a daughter who believed 
not one word of it, until you took her up – 
gave her the tether tour, backing around 
Stranmillis to Malone. That’s where Muldoon slipped 
out a window of a night to meet his squeeze. 
And there’s the bay those giant roses set alight.