The Key to Raglan Road

Would give anything to have experienced you as a woman,
not a girl of 22 which I once was…
Older than most, aged inside;
managed to grow soul to skin in those 13 years since.
lucky 13 has been good to me,
pulsating to the brim of symptoms,
excess in spring—

But on every raining day like this,
the pull to that isle finds me sipping the blackest of tea.
A sudden inexplicable urge for the warm, milky wood
of a Dublin pub in midday,
a thick, bright pink ham sandwich
the din of beautiful musical conversation in a way
only an Irish pub can bring.

Autumn night times, falling rain
daylight gone by 3pm…
The axis spins perfectly so in the northern sky,
when summertime finds the most vivid blanket of colours
kissing and cavorting nearly until midnight,
unable to pack it all in and say good-night.

Raglan Road was a picturesque homestead,
the walk past the US Embassy
(coming in handy when I lost my passport at a party in Belfast;
what better reason could there be)-
At night the streetlights reflected in black golden green
trees swaying with perfect singular echo,
like a Hollywood film set of old.

(Interlude with Taxi Driver…and many other Irish)

“Are you from New Orleans?”
“No, I’m from New York”
“Ah, like Donny Brasco in your black leather jacket”.
“It’s not real leather”…
“Who can afford that anyway…you sure you’re from New York? You don’t have an accent”.
“Well I’m from the country, so less than if---“
“Are you French?”
“No….”
“But you’re Italian, not Spanish…not loud enough…you ever heard them on the bus”?
“Yeah, they’re loud…”
“Like the Americans….not you though…you’re not like an American at all!”
“Thanks…”
“So, where do your people come from?”
“Croatia---“
“Croatia! Them girls is beautiful….dead sexy…I knew one once….she broke my heart, the vixen”.
“We’re dangerous sometimes.”
“You’re telling me….not as bad as the gypsies though…you's is lovely” And those fecking Pakis”.
“There are lots of them here?”
“Not too many, but they’re on their way for true, the Italians, the Romanians, them refugees….”
“But you mean Italians or Pakista-“
“They’re all fucking Packis, the lot of them…this guy once tried to rob me, he was a Pikey, them, the Spanish, the Indians, they’re all fucking Pakis”.
“Yeah?”
“You going to the Thomas House, yeah? Down the Liberties?”
“Yeah, my good friend is going back to America…”
“Good solid place. Watch out for them Pikeys, they’ll throw a baby at you and steal your wallet when you go to catch it…”

Little did he know.
The duality of the Irish comes into play often,
the most gregarious hosts on earth and yet-
a whole veiled world of secrecy and hidden emotion.
Loyalties un-vexed.

Someone once said the Irish will cross over a room Full of crowded people-
just to tell you you’re SHIT.
Where Americans will look at the guy with a big house on the hill and say “someday…”,
an Irishman will look at the same and say “One day I'll get that Bastard”.

Tenacity never dies, the river Liffey lies
in between mists of rain caught in words,
and song and voices.
Music knows not its place and shows itself in the plays of fallen saints,
the liturgy of the poetry
the song and pedestal of the day.
Galway in brisk, flirtatious winds,
boys in sweaters playing chess over Guinness so thick and full
it could wrap round you in an arctic snowstorm
and protect you from the madder elements,
the ones they purposefully didn’t tell you about.

Omagh in summertime on the news,
stories of teeth being pulled and private torture in bathrooms
he told me of-
my boyfriend a catholic from Belfast-
they stopped the car to know him by name-
“That’s the most bombed hotel in Europe……
until Sarajevo (cough)”.
That’s right. We win…what a dismal honor.

Tall girls of the north with strong noses and awkward,
sharp accents of crescendo, black hair-
drinking tea with no sugar becomes the norm for hours on end…
(How is it I am staying in a Protestant household?)
Murals of a language only the oppressed can understand.
His friends tell me at a party wherein the passport went poof:
Boy with a black eye says “they knew I was too good looking to be a Protestant”.

The to and fro of things controlled and not,
seemingly mingling forever in that
late summer sky,
Joyce breathes through bottle caps on the street,
every word a family, a death and a rite.
The river runs west to east, female to male, past eve and adam’s
back to the quiet white stones of Trinity.

Still there was breaking into an NRA bar with friends
kissing boys whose stories collar you in circumstance
and free beer.
The shore of Killiney and Bray, there was no way
to spend enough time in that light, in those stones
bearing down beneath my feet, my heart they stole.

You are more the cosmopolitan European lady now,
reserved and head cocked for some kind of deserved greatness,
but I miss you unbridled, inappropriate and free.
The opposite has happened to me.
Still, gazing down to my chest where the key to Raglan Road rests,
the doors swing open,
our waters fork and join
each time I smell the rain,
hear your voices, of damp chocolate, peat and cigarettes,
and taste your private refrain.
Always waiting down the bar for the next ear.

~ M. Lucia