the
very stones of the walls cry out
against
coercive confinement (what
horrors
have they seen, that they weep
so,
even in summer, dew-heavy) bracing
within
their grasp the dying rooms,
the
thickwaxed floors
Joseph Ward
Mary Kate Fahey
Joseph Madden
Annie O’Connor
who
will give you a voice and spell
out
the letters of your story, one by one,
the
drops of blood red pearls strung, one
after
another, the recurring hurts, generation
upon
generation, the black shame of it?
Michael Ryan
Christina Quinn
Patrick O’Malley
Eileen Fallon
too
many names to say, and, yet, all of
importance,
their frail bodies damned and doomed by
triple
devils of fear, misogyny, and superstition,
abomination
of abominations, washing and
washing
the laundry of others, the theft of their children
John Joseph
Murphy
Angela Daly
Paul Joyce
Margaret Scanlon
know
that you are not forgotten.
