Here are Sunday afternoon shoppers where another
time ago the silence of religious observation
hung penitentially, or, on occasion, a club

match in O’Connor Park might see a procession of men,
cigarettes in hand, nervously anticipating
county glory. I smell petrol fumes now, but also there,

in the air, unexpectedly, the smell of animal
piss, that clean sharp tang must have seeped into
these stones and cement grooved paths, released

now to stagger memory into life: calves slipping
and slithering down green urine slopped trailers;
pigs, pink and manure slathered, squealing in riotous

protest as farmers, nicotine fingered, Wellingtons
stuffed with brown stained dungarees, turn
and twist them into display. Smell has tricked me

into hearing my Grandmother, sending me to
Wrafters for a pound and a half of back rashers,
“And make sure he gives you Tullamore sausages”.

He still stands there behind the counter, flour dust
in his hair, slicing bacon; the smell of stale Guinness
lingering from behind the yellow glass frosted door.

“You too will be a memory like me, young fella.”
He wraps the sausages in grease paper, “Others will
remember you for the ordinary ould things.”.