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Family
Ties
You were fifteen when the Christian
Brothers folded their hands
and fumbling fingers.
Brother Mulholland handed you
a one-way ticket to
an address, a parting grope.
You dug nails into calluses, cursed
the sanctimonious tosser for his love
of the rod and young boys.
Your elder brother
had been spared
these monkish habits.
God knows how,
but he’d got your father
home from the asylum
where he’d been put
after swinging an axe
at the butcher.
They’d used ECT.
He could barely speak when you saw him.
Your mother was shit-scared
of the six-foot-six zombie.
Wouldn’t let him have a fork
for his food, never mind
a knife.
Left him all day, staring, alone
with the cats in the stinking parlour.
Even made him sleep in that pissed-
on chair.
He’d beg to be shaved.
You hated his dribbling face.
Your mother said
he’d been handsome
when they tied the knot,
always polished
his shoes. “It was Wipers
what sent him mad.”
You cleaned up the cat shit
before joining the Merchants.
Your mother wasn’t bothered.
That’s when the nuns
sent your sister home; thirteen,
hair the colour of Jamaican rum.
You’d never spoken to a girl before;
Your mother made you share a bed -
no other place to sleep.
In the morning
you left for sea.
Gone
for five years.
But she always knew
you’d come
again.
© Ruth Casey 2004