"Red-Haired Boy" by Mael Brigde

Red-Haired Boy

that one

—hair the colour of dried blood—

latched his mouth

to your swollen breast

—that hair

that mouth

made from you

from his half-foreign father—

drank you into himself and grew

that child

every portion of him the promise

of a king

—his father the beautiful

his grandfather the Good God

his mother

goddess of word and craft—

how could he not fall prey

to those who twisted

turned him

how could he not wish

to please his father well

yet how

how could he come before

his mother’s people

before the smith who loved him

beg of him a splendid spear

seek to cut him down

when the spear refused the service

when the smith wrenched back his arm

hurled the weapon home

how could your son not fall

before him hundreds died

born again in the Well of Wholeness

that well now shattered

Ruadán remained

as he fell

lay screaming

on crimson ground

till

silence on the land

and you

how could you not upwell

as the divine river before you broke its banks

and all the horror and all the sorrow

of that awful scything

not emerge in ululation

the birth of keening

at the slaying of your son