Poetry: Bookshop

By Michael McCarthy

I spot him in Eason’s on Patrick Street.

Pottering around with a stick. His shoulders

Hunched now, though he’s wearing a good suit.

Scanning the shelves: Philosophy, Poetry, Politics.

Back then he was forever bursting out,

the knees and the arse of his trousers, elbows,

the stitching under his arms. He was well informed,

widely read, academically nearly always in the top one.

Married at nineteen, his six-foot-four frame

towered ...