Visiting Dublin Izzy Kalodner

Visiting Dublin Visiting Dublin Death is on everybody’s minds here. It is on mine too. Yesterday the bus driver spoke of his 52-year-old sister, succumbed to cancer, buried two weeks ago,

old as bones, strong as walls,

his Dublin-city accent thick in his mouth. Sara (who I don’t know) said her grandmother died three years ago and left her the house. Shrugged her shoulders.

They keep digging up bodies from the bog, immortalized things. Didn’t ask for preservation.

In my room with the window closed, I smell peat. the soft scent of it. The streetlamp I can’t block out. On the backs of my eyelids I see us all walking a trail with tear strewn cheeks, hearts in our throats, feet in the dirt. I bury my dead here. In the soft swamp of my chest. I bury them deep.

Izzy Kalodner