Summer, 1995.

Naively, I have been waiting for the sky to dissent,

for the Atlantic to cough up its canopy of clouds

low enough to touch from that upper balcony,

to form the backdrop to that woman who talks to

anyone and everyone, informing them that it's

going to break towards the end of next week.

I am no different to her, living seven days ahead

of myself, looking forward to looking back,

as we Irish do so fondly, not so much as

skipping a beat when evoking the summer of 95:

four whole weeks without rain and in the photos

not one cloud touching those beautiful young strangers.