A Good Catholic Family (Poetry)

Your lot were always different to ours
your dad gruff working class — a Newry man
no play for you on Sundays after Mass
us heathens at a loss to understand

You were the eldest of three girls, one boy
your brother such a sweet angelic child
but by his teens the demon drink took hold
hence loyalties broken, family name defiled

In time each girl a bride and you the first
to walk the aisle determined and demure
on your dad’s arm and him so proud and straight
with you in white — devout but not quite pure

Not long before the second daughter wed —
Theresa — old tradition’s RC name
she bore a son who knifed a rival dead
in all the papers — piling on the shame

And yet more strife and misery to come
when Big C came to call and took his pick
you fought like hell and won the first round clear
and then your aging dad himself fell sick

Now dead and gone — ‘good’ Catholics — Irish blood
but light on luck. What heartless god would choose
to punish without mercy — test the faith
of those who had confessed and paid their dues?

Though passed on these fifteen years I wish we could
debate the thorny issue one more time
in the wake of all that’s happened would you change —
renounce and join a pagan house — like mine?