Irish wonder cook,
wondered why
the tick and lot of you
was lethal.
To be told that,
you know.

Wondered woman,
sat down before your blood
and begged it,
Turn.

Thirty years on Brother Island
eating hosts, round and changed.
Ah, Mary,
named so inappropriately.
We hear your magnificat
just above the hard rule
of stool and piss.











From Poetry Magazine, Vol. 185, no. 3, Dec. 2004. Used with permission.