Today I woke up hungover in Limerick. From my hotel window I saw construction cranes, church spires, and the square tower of a medieval cathedral. Across the river Abbey that flows around King's Island are shops and offices and cafes in modern and Georgian buildings, hideaway ancient lanes with names like Foxes Row, and crowds fluent in more than a dozen languages.

Here I search for embroidery floss, scurry under awnings to escape the rain, and, at times, recall a past life when I had wandered this city with another man I had called husband, to look at art and chat in bars and in appearance seem happy together.

The past wants to return to me all the time, and it comes to me in queer flashes, of blurry faces and alien feelings, even on these orderly streets, but they pass like those dreams you have before waking: intense, but already lost upon consciousness, without heft or power, a minor disturbance that is soon forgotten.

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