The Madwoman of Cork
Today
Is the feast day of Saint Anne
Pray for me
I am the madwoman of Cork.
Yesterday
In Castle street
I saw two goblins at my feet
I saw a horse without a head
Carrying the dead
To the graveyard
Near Turner’s Cross.
I am the madwoman of Cork
No one talks to me.
When I walk in the rain
The children throw stones at me
Old men persecute me
And women close their doors.
When I die
Believe me
They’ll set me on fire.
I am the madwoman of Cork
I have no sense.
Sometimes
With an eagle in my brain
I can see a train
Crashing at the station
If I told people that
They’d choke me.
Then where would I be?
I am the madwoman of Cork
The people hate me.
When Canon Murphy died
I wept on his grave
That was twenty-five years ago.
When I saw him just now
In Dunbar Street
He had clay in his teeth
He blest me.
I am the madwoman of Cork
The clergy pity me.
I see death
In the branches of a tree
Birth in the feathers of a bird.
To see a child with one eye
Or a woman buried in ice
Is the worst thing
And cannot be imagined.
I am the madwoman of Cork
My mind fills me.
I should like to be young
To dress up in silk
And have nine children
I’d like to have red lips
But I’m eighty years old.
I have nothing
But a small house with no windows.
I am the madwoman of Cork
Go away from me.
And if I die now
Don’t touch me.
I want to sail in a long boat
From here to Roche’s Point
And there I will anoint
The sea
With oil of alabaster.
I am the madwoman of Cork
And today
Is the feast day of Saint Anne.
Feed me.
by Patrick Galvin
from New And Selected Poems
publisher: Cork University Press, Cork, 1996