Beating the Devil

(States of Fear revisited)

The unfit mother fitting out
her daughter in frayed Sunday best.
Watching through salt streamed eyes
and smoke stained windows
for the childless priest's visitation
of her sins on the head
of her puzzled innocent.

Standing alone in the court,
hands clasped, head bowed
in tutored obeisance to her betters.
Left to shoulder alone
Ireland's sentence for the not guilty,
scrawled in misleading words
of committal to the Magdalene.

Her being now replaced
by a number on her boots,
blanket and brain.
This valueless member
of a nameless family.
Victim of state sponsored
denial of its own humanity.

from 'The Stockinged Line and Other Poems' by Bill Griffin