Victims
An east wind ripples the dead canal,
tosses fried chicken boxes on Monaghan Street,
sweeps up to rocky Altnaveigh
where blood soured whitewashed walls
in 1921; along the mountain
the whins shiver. Now (the Brits tell us)
this furze will symbolise the victims
of thirty years of murder, bright
yellow petals will soften suffering
by hinting at regeneration.
Once, by the Omeath Road oil-tanks
at dusk, I stepped on a dead rat.