Devotion

 

  byAnne Fitzgerald

 

 

 

 

It makes sense all the same when you think of it.  Born

on the feast of finding the true cross, he’d always felt

a direct line, so to speak.  Since Johnny gave up the drink

he’s killed worrying them blasted rosary beads to death,

his prints will surely be left on some glorious mystery

like a pilgrim crossing the Mayflower’s gangway, ready

to set sail.  Just like the sail Johnny hoists through the neck

of a Jameson twelve year old.  Launches it of a Friday

in the Black Swan’s back bar, where Nelly Regan’s pink

paddling pool might well be the lake in Central Park.

For miles they does come to re-enact crusades, to seek

indulgences for battles lost, run ripples in full sail, sack

purveyors of high castles walls, pray turret slits a melody

of martyrs, tall flags wave colour askew as if a tapestry

lost in a watered down detail of its own threaded myth.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Anne Fitzgerald’s collections are The Map of Everything (Dublin, Forty Foot Press, 2006), and Swimming Lessons (Wales, Stonebridge, 2001). She is a recipient of The Ireland Fund of Monaco Writer-in-Residence at The Princess Grace Irish Library in Monaco.  For further information on publications visit Forty Foot Press.