the gonzo mug, the first thing for which i reached
that night when i was twelve and i returned
to the cubicle in the convent i called home
where one hundred and thirty girls
shuffled along the marble corridors of this once
british landlord’s manor, the irony of such a gaggle
of indigenous women speaking nothing
but our native tongue in a place where once we
would have been cailín aimsires, no more than scullery maids,
no less than always available to the whims and wants
of some hungry force tossing his occupying seed into unwelcomed
furrows, here now our victory. our time. irish clambering back
into the molecules of memory. day by day. phrase by
repeated phrase. were i there again, it would be
more than enough, the daily baptism
of language resurrecting from the bones. back then, its loss
sauntered along in the blood, the brutality of one native
against another. who had words for damage done? who dared
begin the job of that unraveling? the month february.
the day valentine’s. just told by mother
superior that the senior girl i adored (let me tell you here
that this was a love that lasted all of fifteen minutes, beginning
to finish, no idea in me of its great need, just one embrace
in the darkness of a music room while others
scurried past on their way from evening supper to study hall
so that she and i arrived late and my heart knew
something it had not known before, someone had claimed
me entirely as their own). the hooked finger of mother
superior beckoned from the dais. she whispered in my ear
in the quietness of that once banquet room
that this liaison was to cease.
some snap undone.
night prayers in church singing
to a god i hated. climbed the spiral staircase, unearthed
the hidden envelope among my white knee socks.
emptied the contents of my father’s heart
pills into the saucer of my palm. filled the gonzo mug
half way with freezing water. swallowed the lot. watched my reflection
in the darkness of the window. smiled.
i remember that.
smiled at her authority.
climbed into bed.
waited. counted each breath. just as i had done
months before. on the surgeon’s table. count backwards,
the masked man had asked.
ten to one, good girl.
i did the same.
i can’t remember
where i stopped.