Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ

Wrapped in shadow and silver ribbon
The houses are sleeping under a moonglow sky.
A soft breeze runs through the streets.
Only the flitflutter of tireless wings against the street lights and in the distance
A dog in its prison yard baying at the darkened window
The boy listens, knowing enough already to plot a course to a silenced house.
He is small for his age, dark haired, brown eyed
Still carrying some layers that wrapped him as a babe.
There is a booklet of snaps in which he is seen
Softly held and smiling
Surrounded by other forms, all outlived.
There is no easy sense in which they were known to him, these comforting smilers,
So he does not yet weep at their passing.
The view of the street and the imagined deeds are the boy’s last ritual before sleep
And he derives a comfort from it all he could not have known was ebbing.
He sleeps soundly through the night and wakes to the noise outside his window
Late already though it is only just dawn.
He is one of a few who rise before morning
To breathe the cool breezes in the softly rising light.
He dresses quickly and edges round creaking boards
Like a thief in the house, leaving by the keyless rear.
The air is sharp though there is a hint of coming heat

Between the gently gusting wind and behind the dark rim of the mountain, the sky is tinged with light.

He runs through the street looking as he runs to the mountain, black and silent against the breaking sky.

He runs and finds the others, kindred, all eager, all sleepless and keen though it is only just dawn.

They stand in the tidy street speaking in whispers so wary is their presence here.

Sparrows sing, a lone gull cackles and hoots from a rooftop, pigeons flap and coo.

The air smells of salt seas wafting up from the dock.

The Liverpool boat blows its horn as it enters the Lough and the seabird swoops from its rooftop.

They stand and they listen and whisper so wary is their presence here.

They meet every morning before the city moves and go unchallenged through the streets of the rain washed town.

In the grassy slopes of Pig’s Entry where swine once grazed they dig holes

And cover traps for pre-occupied walkers

Breaking bones that step on flimsy surfaces, cracking legs like brittle straws.

They tie door knockers with string so that no door can be opened, causing to perish imprisoned old and toothless crones

They pursue cats heavy with night movers and never catch, even they

They climb drainpipes to stare in through uncurtained windows at female forms abandoned in sleep

They stand on window ledges and piss dramatically into the street, each fine arc sparkling in the rising sunlight to end in a splash mysteriously formed

They collect debris discarded by the dissolving night and stack and ignite in derelict houses, incinerating whole streets, towns and cities

They disembowel moths that collisions have halted and pop bloody spleens with beer bottle caps

They open night drains and fish in the sewer for discarded condoms on route to the sea that is deep and forgiving.

The morning breaks.

They pause and listen to alarm bells calling from slumber their resting jailors, all through the street peels the tinny chorus.

Sore labour hacks and curses into wakefulness, shovels gather coal from closed yards.

They part, swift and sudden and enter unseen their dosing houses to slip, unheard, between covers still warm from the night.

The sun rises, lightening thin curtains, and discovers them there in the warm hug of sleep innocent, the babes, and dreaming

A comfort ebbing.