in memory of Anna Cullinane (Sister Mary Antony)
The Holy Father gave her leave
To return to her father’s house
At seventy-eight years of age.
When young in the Franciscan house at Calais
She complained to the dentist, I have a pain in our teeth
— Her body dissolving out of her first mother,
Her five sisters aching at home.
Her brother listened to news
Five times in a morning on Radio Éireann
In Cork, as the Germans entered Calais.
Her name lay under the surface, he could not see her
Working all day with the sisters,
Stripping the hospital, loading the sick on lorries,
While Reverend Mother walked the wards and nourished them
With jugs of wine to hold their strength.
J’étais à moitié saoûle. It was done,
They lifted the old sisters on to the pig-cart
And the young walked out on the road to Desvres,
The wine still buzzing and the planes over their heads.
Je mangerai les pissenlits par les racines.
A year before she died she lost her French accent
Going home in her habit to care for her sister Nora
(Une malade à soigner une malade).
They handed her back her body,
Its voices and its death.