Garden God

Easing her flip-flops and ectopic body
down the lamp-post,
this grasshopper of a girl
fringed with electricity
from São Paulo and the South Seas
hangs with me at three a.m….

touches at herself publicly –
and grants her charm
in piecemeal at the postern
earlier in the night
in the stripclub she works in
and told me about:

Leitrim Street’s greased pole
awash with wallflowers
and those who grope
at mechanical movements
and things without a chance
in the chaos of corn,
watching the phantoms
that they’ve fallen for…
suggesting sudden betrothals
and leave, moping
down Coburg Street
where all the shadows cross.

Let’s run off to Rome, she says,
to someone she hardly knows,
and sees only from the dimly-lit
strip-joint in her head
she hardly wishes to return to,
and I, in a pile of manacles
shall join her
in cuckoo-time
of Shango, Maytime
of Bachué, lily-time
of one chance
to love, one chance to hope,
to lock arms
on Connaught Avenue
at half past three in the morning
dreaming of Rome,
in the grasses’ arms,
with the gold in the shadows
where we are loved.