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Seamus Heaney’s “Punishment”

Posted by: Joseph Kelly | July 22, 2015 | No Comment |

Punishment

I can feel the tug

Seamus Heaney

of the halter at the nape
of her neck, the wind
on her naked front.

It blows her nipples
to amber beads,
it shakes the frail rigging
of her ribs.

I can see her drowned
body in the bog,
the weighing stone,
the floating rods and boughs.

 

Windeby Girl

Windeby Girl

Under which at first
she was a barked sapling
that is dug up
oak-bone, brain-firkin:

her shaved head
like a stubble of black corn,
her blindfold a soiled bandage,
her noose a ring

to store
the memories of love.
Little adulteress,
before they punished you

you were flaxen-haired,
undernourished, and your
tar-black face was beautiful.
My poor scapegoat,

I almost love you
but would have cast, I know,
the stones of silence.
I am the artful voyeuur

of your brain’s exposed
and darkened combs,
your muscles’ webbing
and all your numbered bones:

I who have stood dumb
when your betraying sisters,*
cauled in tar,
wept by the railings,

who would connive
in civilized outrage
yet understand the exact
and tribal, intimate revenge.

 

*Irish women punished by the punished by the IRA for dating English soldiers during the modern Troubles.

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Hello world!

Posted by: Joseph Kelly | September 24, 2012 | 1 Comment |

Welcome to College of Charleston Blogs. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!

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