An Lár

The minutes cross dress as hours and the days slip into loose, dream sewn months. Time stares at her bruised reflection in the changing room mirror. One size fits all.

It has only been a month but it feels like

The Seven Year Itch.

Scratching the cul-de-sac nerve ends of my State arranged marriage to Suburbia.

Oh, there were good enough days at first. Or were they hours?

She wore me out with walking. Through her lawns, crescents, and heights. My fingers plucking her black painted railings, patent like hair clips parting fringes of brown clay.

Carnal Cleptos, we were, stealing kisses in her secluded side streets,

Undressing her addresses. Seducing me with her neatly trimmed front gardens, the euphoria of her swollen property prices and the strict discipline of her private schools.

Her triple glazing.

A dash of Pebble perfume.

Car showroom driveways. Land Rovers crunching the gravel like clenched fists.

Her Dutch designed office over garage conversions.

I traced my finger along the outline of her postcode tattoos.

D 12, D6, D6w

Her mute bell tower spurned, no one diggin’ her digits.

Quiet enough to hear the hidden Swan gurgle, like a hunger, beneath her low tide streets. Always talking to me about the past with her fella in The Stella. Dancing

The Time Warp Again in her lost Classic.

Blasé about her

Elephants and Castles.

She poured the first drinks.

Two glasses of Bushy Park, shot through me like a promise.

Swirl of pond and poultry.

Elation of slopes.

The sudden rush of open space.

Two glasses of

Bushy Park slurred into six.

Déjà vu of a time when I might have done Bushy Park twice a year.

It is every day now.

I am Powerless over her phantom pitches. I am hard on the parks now, a few times a day just to stay steady. Weaning myself off with quiet roads never hit the spot like the parks did.

I am back worse than ever, three laps of

Bushy a day now. Waking with the shakes, I find the cure with a stroll of Dodder.

Morning drinking Dodder, full bottle of

Bushy Park in the afternoon Lunch. Nap. Up and out. A cheeky mid-afternoon Poddle before hitting the Bushy in the evening again in time for the last light.

One month into my marriage, I am stuck at home getting wasted on parks, hung over on Bushy. Remembering my ex, the woman the bus drivers call “An Lár”

Early in May I walked into town from Kimmage for the first time since March. It felt like I was going to meet a lover with who I had fallen out with. I wanted to repair things with her and start again.