Our dog Kumo barks at horses:
we ascribe it to his Traveller roots.
Of his back story we know little
except that he was found, astray,
near a halting site in Mullingar
whereto my daughter sped
to snatch him from Death Row.

At Ballinasloe Horse Fair
I fought off attempts
to buy him back, specially bred
as it seems he was,
for mysterious traditional pastimes.

Now he prefers to look out our windows
at the people passing on the street below.
In recent times, the traffic has thinned
to almost nothing, exposing
the long black cars containing coffins
heading up the empty road
to the cemetery of Mount Jerome.
Occasionally, they bring out
the magnificent Victorian version,
with the black plumes of death
on the heads of the black horses,
like in a mockney gangster movie.

At the first faint click of hooves on concrete,
he races to the windows
paws skittering on parquet
and leaps onto the sill
to give tongue to his feelings.
On this fine winter’s morning
in Year Two of the Plague, Kumo,
Comrade Dog, allow me to join you
in barking at the hearse.

Michael O’Loughlin was born in Dublin in 1958. He has published seven collections of poetry, most recently Liberty Hall (New Island, 2021)