for the reburial of the Magdalenes
The soil frayed and sifted evens the score —
There are women here from every county,
Just as there were in the laundry.
White light blinded and bleached out
The high relief of a glance, where steam danced
Around stone drains and giggled and slipped across water.
Assist them now, ridges under the veil, shifting,
Searching for their parents, their names,
The edges of words grinding against nature,
As if, when water sank between the rotten teeth
Of soap, and every grasp seemed melted, one voice
Had begun, rising above the shuffle and hum
Until every pocket in her skull blared with the note —
Allow us now to hear it, sharp as an infant’s cry
While the grass takes root, while the steam rises:
Washed clean of idiom · the baked crust
Of words that made my temporary name ·
A parasite that grew in me · that spell
Lifted · I lie in earth sifted to dust ·
Let the bunched keys I bore slacken and fall ·
I rise and forget · a cloud over my time.