Noel King

Tralee, Ireland. 

Noel King was born and lives in Tralee, Co Kerry. His poetry collections are published by Salmon: Prophesying the Past, (2010), The Stern Wave (2013) and Sons (2015). He has edited more than fifty books of work by others (Doghouse Books, 2003 – 2013) and was poetry editor of Revival Literary Journal (Limerick Writers’ Centre) in 2012/13. A short story collection, The Key Signature & Other Stories was published by Liberties Press in 2017. www.noelking.ie

Poem completed 14th July 2020

Sr. Mackellatah, a Nun with Glasses

We believed she had eyes in the back of her head,

would spot if we were whispering; talking.

I didn’t whisper or talk

but scratched my arse without realizing it

and picked my nose to my heart’s content.

Once I shat in my pants

and she humiliated me in front of the class,

making me put on a fresh white pair she had  in her cupboard

– these the first Y-front I ever wore.

She waved the dirty pair to laughter from class,

laughter cos of the bright green colour and frills

(mother recycled all underwear down-along-her-children).

 

When Grandad collected me he picked up on my shame.

Granny washed and aired the Y-fronts,

put them in a sheet of tissue paper and took them back.

The spittle from Sr. Mackellatah’s lips

made my granny recoil

as the nun screamed KEEP THEM

and I learned a new word – hygiene.

That nun took a stroke in school

one morning a few years later.

I was in 4^th class then,

we pushed to the window

to see the ambulance take her away

and for one brief nanosecond I felt sorry for her.