(n.) a thick and heavy Celtic accent.
Disputed etymology: perhaps from Old Irish bróg, ‘shoe,’ from the footwear ‘characteristic of the wilder Irish.’ 

You hear it in your youth, d’óige,
a tongue that sticks out
like your shoes—there it is, 
your brogue,
do bhróga.


Its origins are murky, but you see it
in barróg, to wrestle or embrace,
a grasp that neither gives nor takes
nor holds, but circles its own
provenance

as you do with barróg’s other meanings:
a reef, white-crested wave, breaking
like your voice—not in growth
but in hiding, your speech
bleached like coral.

Beir nó tóg, do you bring or take
the sound with you? Say aloud
Gortin and Doonagore to recall
your typecast voice. Rogare, to beg,
ask, interrogate

as others beg your pardonable vowels,
until you can’t hear a fada in ‘rogue,’ nor
séimhiú in ‘photo,’ until other mouths
translate your name to pound signs
and percentages

until you cut off all the markers of your roots.
And in this aimsir láithreach,
weathered time, you return home
to hear your name spoken aloud
again

exactly as it is, and you try again to walk 
in your own shoes, barróg cheana,
with a hold on your tongue, a pause, 
between what you say
and what they can hear.

Commended in the 2023/24 Magma Poetry Competition
by judge Raymond Antrobus.

All winning and commended poems available to read on the Magma website here.