The Petty Criminal
Margaret Kennedy 1790–1884
Jude Brigley
So you won your case against that neighbor
Molly McGuire, who slapped your face?
Was it something you said? Your blunt
words have been handed down through
generations. If my mother fumed
at my Dada, he would wink and say:
“It’s the Conway in her” but he loved
her blarney, her Maureen O’Hara charm
though she only set foot on Irish soil once.
You, Peggy, were only a Conway by marriage
after all. And this was not your only brush
with the law, though who could blame
Dennis for stealing the sheep despite
his fourteen days in the Cork prison?
If I was starving, then I might be stealing
a sheep too though I wouldn’t know what
to do with it, but you did Peg, and
your eight weans fed that night on
the old mutton. Nor do I blame you
for being drunk and disorderly
on the streets of Cork, though what
did disorderly mean back then? Were
you singing some raucous song or
one decrying tyranny? Were you picking
a fight for the hell of it? Sometimes,
the devil in you must break out–
I understand how it is to be poor:
a relentless scrimp of making do and
what’s needed to keep us sane and sound.
Poverty arrives with the first, clear instruction–
to find a way to survive. So you continue to howl
at the streets, at money and the moon.
Margaret Kennedy 1790–1884
Jude Brigley
So you won your case against that neighbor
Molly McGuire, who slapped your face?
Was it something you said? Your blunt
words have been handed down through
generations. If my mother fumed
at my Dada, he would wink and say:
“It’s the Conway in her” but he loved
her blarney, her Maureen O’Hara charm
though she only set foot on Irish soil once.
You, Peggy, were only a Conway by marriage
after all. And this was not your only brush
with the law, though who could blame
Dennis for stealing the sheep despite
his fourteen days in the Cork prison?
If I was starving, then I might be stealing
a sheep too though I wouldn’t know what
to do with it, but you did Peg, and
your eight weans fed that night on
the old mutton. Nor do I blame you
for being drunk and disorderly
on the streets of Cork, though what
did disorderly mean back then? Were
you singing some raucous song or
one decrying tyranny? Were you picking
a fight for the hell of it? Sometimes,
the devil in you must break out–
I understand how it is to be poor:
a relentless scrimp of making do and
what’s needed to keep us sane and sound.
Poverty arrives with the first, clear instruction–
to find a way to survive. So you continue to howl
at the streets, at money and the moon.