The streets remember their old names .
Dorchester was once Knockananna,
Jamaica Plain spoke Gaelic
in corner shops where Murphy’s bread
still rises like a prayer.
Our saints wear different colors now:
green basketball jerseys,
police blue, EMT white,
but they cross themselves the same way
before sirens, before tip-off,
before running into burning buildings.
Listen: the harbor speaks with a Cork accent
when the tide turns. Listen:
the train rails singing sean-nós
all the way to Forest Hills.
Even the pigeons strut like they own
the place — pure Dublin attitude,
heads bobbing to invisible bodhrán beats.
We’ve built cathedrals from triple-deckers,
made altars of bar tops, turned
every funeral into a seisiún,
every wedding into a wake ,
because that’s what we brought with us:
the ability to praise and grieve
in the same breath, same song,
same shot of Jameson.