Domestic Violence

1. It was winter, lunar, wet. At dusk Pewter seedlings became moonlight orphans. Pleased to meet you meat to please you said the butcher's sign in the window in the village. Everything changed the year that we got married. And after that we moved out to the suburbs. How young we were, how ignorant, how ready to think the only history was our own. And there was a couple who quarreled into the night, Their voices high, sharp: nothing is ever entirely right in the lives of those who love each other. 2. In that season suddenly our island Broke out its old sores for all to see. We saw them too. We stood there wondering how the salt horizons and the Dublin hills, the rivers, table mountains, Viking marshes we thought we knew had been made to shiver into our ancient twelve by fifteen television which gave them back as gray and grayer tears and killings, killings, killings, then moonlight-colored funerals: nothing we said not then, not later, fathomed what it is is wrong in the lives of those who hate each other. 3. And if the provenance of memory is only that—remember, not atone— and if I can be safe in the weak spring light in that kitchen, then why is there another kitchen, spring light always darkening in it and a woman whispering to a man over and over what else could we have done? 4. We failed our moment or our moment failed us. The times were grand in size and we were small. Why do I write that when I don't believe it? We lived our lives, were happy, stayed as one. Children were born and raised here and are gone, including ours. As for that couple did we ever find out who they were and did we want to? I think we know. I think we always knew.