And Mother Said 1963 Poem by Terry Collett

Magdalene's mother yaks
about the price of things
in the shops

when she gets back
from town
and how she'd met

Bridget O'Connell
and how that woman can talk
it's no wonder her husband

goes away quite frequently
and what was Mary Maguire
doing here?

her mother says
just listening to records
Magdalene says

better be no mess
in your room
I only tidied it up

the other day
no mess her
daughter says

(she'd tidied up the bed
and floor and hid
the booze and cigarettes)

there's talk of her
at the school
from the sisters

Magdalene's mother says
what talk?
none to worry

your head with
her mother says
so what was she

doing here?
you know I don't like
her being here

don't you?
just listening
to the Billy Fury record

just friends
Magdalene says
(they'd lain in bed

and kissed and did things
and she reflects
on it now

as her mother
yaks on)
and that other

friend of yours
that Martha
there's talk of her

there at the school too
the nuns thinking her
being a nun at sometime

now if there's one
to encourage it is there
she's the one

the mother says
putting away shopping
don't want that Mary here

unless I am here too
understand?
Magdalene nods

it is easier than arguing
and I smell smoke
have you been

smoking again?
And with her?
she's a bad influence on you

I won't have it
and if your da finds out
you're for it

now let me get on
and make sure the room
is tidy because if I go up

and it's not then
there'll be trouble
Magdalene says nothing

watching her mother's lips
opening and closing
like a fish out of water

and she
the queer girl loving
daughter.