Back in Dublin. Spring. The place has gone to hell.

Crawling on its hands and knees back to the eighties

when only a few good restaurants were doing well

and the rest of us were happy eating fries and praties.

Out in Dún Laoghaire, on the seafront, one of the best

is prepping lobster and frying prawns from Dublin Bay

for the happy ghost of Charles J Haughey and his guest.

The ghosts of waves crash on the coast all night and day.

Shades everywhere. Even the children aren’t free

of likenesses that play through gestures, words and eyes,

themselves blind to the ghosts. For them the sea’s the sea,

the waves the waves, the blue skies weirdly still blue skies.