Now in my sleep I can hear them beyond the wall,
A chapterhouse growl, gently continuous:
The sound the child heard, waking and dozing again
All the long night she was tucked up in the library
While her father told his story to the chaplain
And then repeated it before the bishop.
She heard his flat accent, always askew
Responding to the Maynooth semitones,
A pause, and then the whisper of the scribe
Sweeping up the Latin like dust before a brush,
Lining up the ablatives, a refined
Countrywoman’s hiss, and the neuter scrape of the pen.
I feel the ticking of their voices and remember how
My sister before she was born listened for hours
To my mother practising scales on the cello;
A grumble of thick string, and then climbing
To a high note that lifted
that lifted its head
like a seal —
To a high note that lifted its head like a seal in the water.