Coins scooped from pocket with a clawed fist,
made rigid by three bent-back fingers,
that gave curl to your carpenter’s hands.
Grandad, I thought you made it up,
when you christened my allowance,
There’s your doolally tap, don’t spend it all in one shop.
Put aside from your pension, that ‘metal’
meant only pear-drops and comics to me.
Yet your dictums on debt stayed the course,
taught me everyone should keep a small reserve.
Colonial slangfor madness, doolallytap
sat so happily in your vernacular.
Given your credo, it seems at least,
you were magnanimous about language.
Sinéad Griffin has been published in Poetry Ireland Review, The Irish Times, The Marrow Poetry, The Honest Ulsterman, Abridged and elsewhere. Her work featured in the Poetry Jukebox at IMMA. One of the editors at The Four Faced Liar, she’s currently the recipient of a Dublin City Arts Bursary.
More work by Sinéad Griffin
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