The plague in January and I walk in Glasnevin. Untimely mistletoe grows high in branches, a dark ulcer—a hard knot against the sky. Up there capillaries of geese fly, their wings clipped by the gloom of the darkening hour. 

I stay within my five kilometers and pass by the monuments and celtic crosses that keep the dead locked in their places. Guards stop the living from going much further; under the shadow of a closed pub, they flag down cars on the main road. Inside, a hundred pint glasses gather dust like forgotten trophies, or souvenirs from a time when travel seemed incidental. 

In some dank corner of the cemetery, Saint Brigid is waiting in the wings for tomorrow. An emblem of spring, early, too early perhaps, before the wilting snowdrops have melted into the hard ground. Brigid is a life giver, but she dwells too, crying for the dead while the world is reborn yet again. For those of us here to see it, it can’t come soon enough. Until then, we drink cans by the canal and window shop as if it’s going out of fashion. Masked, we keep our distance, but catch the uncertainty in our own eyes reflected back in the dark glass. 

At home, we succumb to lust or lie lackluster on the unmade bed. Our company is the only solace and yet sometimes it feels like another trap. His body, sleep-filled, wrapping round me in the darkness. Can you give me some space? I whisper, but he only grips me tighter, lost in slumber. 

A trip to the cemetery buys me an hour on my own. I notice the pairs of magpies, monochrome in the dusk light. Passing by the couples buried there together, locked in the frozen ground, I wonder how it would feel to be truly, completely alone. Then, chided by the closing bell, and draped in the last of the light, I turn for home and leave January and the dead behind me. Saint Brigid can keen her loss for them tomorrow.