I’ve built cities in my brain,
cities that no one would recognize.

I’ve danced around Dublin with Dedalus and Bloom,
but no Dubliner would recognize his fair city
from my mental projection.

It doesn’t matter how masterful Joyce is in his description.
I’ve only visited the version that I tossed up in my mind
as I tore through his poetry,
and which was torn down in the wake of my reading.

And yet I treasure that false metropolis.

It’ll do — for now.