"A Prayer to St Bridget" by Sarah Clancy

A Prayer to St Bridget

by Sarah Clancy

A prayer is to Saint Brigit in her most Pagan incarnation 

Bridget let us keep our eyes and poke theirs out 

We need another word than justice 

for these contests where everyone we care about almost always loses

We need new phrases for the way our bodies are perceived as traps

for men to unsuspectingly get caught in

and for how we are made to comply with this

We need other words than conviction and witness

for the surrender and regrant submission 

that even successful prosecutions entail for the victims 

We need to summons a diatribe so savage that it sounds like our maternal ancestors 

howling at us enraged with our obediences 

We need to let them shame us into resistance

whenever we denied jurisdiction over our own interiors 

our own existences 

Yes we need sentences but more than that 

we need a whole new language for the damage that happens 

when some overseer or other gets to tell us 

what the severed parts of our anatomy were worth 

what price an unnecessary hysterectomy 

a broken pelvis 

or a decade of forced labour in a laundry 

and who gets to be the judge of this 

We might need new mouths to make it known that we won't stand for it 

but so be it

it'll take a litany of curses harsh and vicious enough 

to make the judge and jury of public opinion actually listen 

We need to expose the concealed weapon of our intelligence and not apologise for it

no matter how uncomfortable this makes things 

We need to put those power brokers on notice that if they call our protest hysterical 

we'll catch them by their gullets 

We need to make it known that the days of us putting our own eyes out are over 

and that as and when it's necessary we'll fix our sites on each and every stuffed shirt 

who attempts to discuss the mitigating circumstances which mean 

it was okay to hurt us 

We need a daylight court that we can enter into whole and leave intact 

and we need words for this

Women we've lost our tongues in battle and we need to take them back

Image: Screenshot of Sarah Clancy’s video of this poem, showing a scene from St Brigid’s Well at Liscannor, with a bowing head of St Mary (white statue with rosaries around her neck) in front of a print of Jesus on the wall.