A new poem by poet and novelist Maggie Rainey-Smith.

Bang a Drum

We’ve hit Gentle Annie
passed the pub at Okaramio
and on the left, at Wakapuaka
there’s Sunnybank where
parents left their children

An oddly named orphanage
manned (ha) by Nuns
childless women in black
habits, scapula, cowls and
easy access to rosary beads

A cross they could finger
as they scowled at the
babies, whose parents had
either died, got sick or
perhaps were ashamed

but should we judge
the nuns, in retrospect
or forgive them…
their sometimes cruelty
this question was raised

at book group recently
reading ‘Small Things
Like These’ by Claire Keegan
I thought of my siblings
not even orphans, just

babies really, under
five years of age
one washing their
own shitty pants
in a locked room

where they found
a drum to bang
and they banged
and banged and
banged the drum

The Friday Poem is edited by Chris Tse. Submissions are currently closed.