Mother’s Day, 2003, Flying Westward, and: Jeanne d’Arc, Imprisoned, and: The Changeling

Mother’s Day, 2003, Flying Westward

An hour out of Gatwick, we’re cruising at however many feet—I can’t

remember numbers—but, outside, clouds colonize the air, one dissident

shredded by our wing. The war is “won,” the casualties, well, they’re justified,

our president’s convinced. I could read about postmodern fashion in this

magazine, but it’s too hip. If I wanted deconstruction, I’d listen

to the news. Today, they interviewed the parents of some soldiers stationed

overseas, proud Americans, still sure we’re enlightening the Middle

East. My daughters, to my shame, support the occupation, too. Dawn

disappears behind the plane. I see nothing out there now but the jet-trail

of other travelers vandalizing the sky. I’d like to turn, go back, fly

again into Rome where pace flags brighten windowsills. But it’s too late.

I’ve had my holiday, the family expects its mother home, not running

around in European churches, praying God protect the world from us.

It’s not evening yet, though we have lost the day, but our approach, descending

through rain, looks dim, the West already settling, anticipating night.

Jeanne d’Arc, Imprisoned

And they call me possessed—royals, clergy leaders of state circling and chanting die,

my comrades, sisters and brothers, stunned dumb to imagine me lashed to a pole. Do

they hope I will sprout horns or fly away? I have renounced the voices of the saints

and for that lie—a moment’s fear—do I suffer what they call reprieve. Now English,

now Latin, the message is always death when an earthly empire speaks. But I am

baffled, fatigued. Have I mistranslated? St Catherine still whispers war in my ear,

perhaps it is parable. Metaphor. Single girl in a world of politic

kings. It’s slippery in here, which label must I wear today? Heretic, herald

of wisdom, witch, woman who dares to wear men’s garments. Guards toss me dresses, then they

threaten rape. Who wouldn’t choose breeches, I am skirted with evil, I am under

surveillance, occupied. They’re at my door, hoping to catch a snatch of treasonous

speech, though the official word is that I only talk to myself. I will say no

more than a prayer when they conjure up their terror, set a torch to my skin and press

in for a better view of the fire. I see the godly ones stirring my ashes,

measuring bone, adding a pinch of lime. And they call me touched, traitor to the Right.

With my halo of pain, my sanctified mind, I am the holiest thing they know.

The Changeling

Testimony of Johanna Kennedy Burke at the trial of Michael Cleary for the murder of his wife, Bridget Boland Cleary, 1895

Are you a witch, are you a fairy, / Or are you the wife of Michael Cleary?

–Schoolyard rhyme, County Tipperary

Picture her now, no sheehoguey thing           spirited from the mountain by fairies to cough and curse down her husband’s house.

But neither my cousin Bridget. One           gold earring still in place, black stockings on her charred legs, the rest a burned sack

of meat and bones. I never liked her,           I admit. Dress-proud. She made herself the word on every gossip’s tongue but

even I could see that a chest cold           does not mark a woman for murder unless that drunk Jack Dunne is called in,

and what did Michael expect from him,           a fairy doctor, but “That is not Bridget Boland”? I think of her now,

the fevered face, her fear when she pulled           me down to the pillow to whisper, “He’s making a changeling of me.” I

saw only tuberculosis, blood           on her mouth, and if her husband was brutal, well, I saw only the bed

she had made and would have to lie in.           Forgive me, I was asleep when he doused her with the paraffin, I should

have seen it would come to that, the fire           was in his...