Rathgar, Dublin.
November 1983.
Creosote clouds over the Dublin Mountains.
Red-bricked houses and four boys running rampant, singing, “armored cars and tanks and guns.”
Mam calls order.
Time for tea, poached eggs and bread-and-butter slices.
Shovel the coal into the scuttle in the rain, next door’s cat cries in the dark.
Scratches on the tar-papered garage roof.
More cats.
A chorus.
Mam’s…