Bridget Cleary

Hey folks, this is a new, original poem that I just wrote. This about a very strange, but true, tale of a man named Michael Cleary, who believed that his wife was taken by fairies. He immolated the changeling impostor who looked and acted like his wife, with the help of some town-folk. The brutal murder of Bridget Cleary has become folk-lore because of this odd circumstance. I hope you enjoy this and thanks for reading!!



She wasn't the same,
My love,
After they took her,
Her skin, once ashen-pale,
Radiated strangely
With an eldritch glow
Her, eyes, dew-drop and doe
Agape to the promise of spring-
Narrowed-as if shielding from a foreign-sun
Too bright for shade-sheltered eyes.
How she would sing
Late-afternoon in the early-harvest
As if joined in duet,
Her words, rhythmic, spoke-low-in-strange-tones
Not my garish love, boisterous in barley pubs,
Pints by the fingers, bellowing ballads
Tales of bare-backed knuckles and revolution,
She drank from a different cup,
After, after everything changed,
We all bore witness, we knew well,
Within that flesh, bluebell-stitched,
Dwelt a spirit fey
With roots beyond the vale,
Wearing the bones of my Bridget Cleary.

We had to do it, the fire, the flame,
She wasn't my love, she wasn't the same,
The Reverend took her wispy frame,
Doused the beast to tame-
It, it would burn, to bring her back to me,
My love, my Bridget Cleary.

I dabbed the kerosene
Up-on her gentle nape,
-A holy perfume-
Wept when she screamed,
"I'm not a changeling"
But, alas, it wasn't -her-
And, as *she* screamed, piercing the heavens
I prayed for-forgiveness
Not to God,
Whom bestowed his blessing,
But to my lithe, to my weary,
To my lost love,
Bridget Cleary.





***Copyright 2014. Richard C. Morgan***