The M1 to Belfast
Do you remember the time I laughed at your dream? My hand on your leg
as you curled, a nervous driver, towards the plastic dash
and drove too fast at the line of hills separating the North from the South.
It’s about here, every time, that the cummerbund M1 from Dublin
births lemon Caution! Deer! signs and snaps into a mountain, which in turn
erupts like a Coke float into the oak-flanked road to Belfast.
I always hope to catch the moment of transformation around some bend
in the road–beyond some wood where the hedges split
into fields and the fields squat into rocks and the rocks hoof into a mountain.
You were gripping the wheel with the sincere-but-distant expression
of someone listening to an earnest apology they can only partially hear
and I was watching for when the road turned into a mountain. Do you
remember you said your dad was wearing your socks when he shot your dog;
I laughed because I only heard the first bit, and realised too late
that the peaks had already woofed up from nowhere. Were you watching?
I complained, scanning the sudden valley. We missed it again.