After the Party
(St. Brigid's Day)

Take a look at  me
the virgin bird on the wall
playing overdue priest
to liberated small farmers

I am Anthony Raftery
blinded except in the heat
I never saw a sailboat on Lough Carra
I courted in Jerusalem

by donkey-bit light
in bitter peace
if El Al  not God
makes waves

If hell's gates win
it won't be the fault
of my small voice
my fiddle
that sings in the mud
in the rain
for pennies' haloes.