1695 c/o Dennis James Sweeney

Window Tax

The city grew dark.

Men and women lost
their breath. Children
never found it.

Wet unlet-
out swelled the sofas.
Soon we could
not sit.

Cooking fires lit
the motes
that settled down to
pass the days
next to us.

If there was weather
we did not know it.

Tomas broke
his head against
the newly plastered bricks.

It was two
shillings a year.