Michael Collins
for Greg Delanty and Gerry Murphy
A marked man
skirting the Roundy
and Malt Shovel
then crossing an adjacent bridge
which also goes by the name
Collins. Beneath me, the river which
in this land of related things
must also be
a not-too-distant cousin
and the half of the town
burnt by rioting British troops
another proximate relation.
There was a different branch
of the family—bankers, impresarios
of the Last Great Boom—
whose faces I recognised as barnacles
on the hull of the Julia, yet another
cousin you might have loved
for her American accent
fallible tone—a camera-wary Roberts
or just another Collins—
a salt spray or industrious
crew to scrub
the flank of her
at the tail end
of this large, undulating
weekend, the extended
or over-extended
family following dutifully
the bowling match
to the grinding accompaniment
of ‘Half Man Half Bicycle’
at Mannix and Culhane.