WRA

Watching a film on the

development of the Irish Republican Army

with my father on a lazy Sunday –

two brothers are divided between

north and south,

having started with the same cause.

In the end, one puts the other to

the firing squad and I say “look at

the foolishness of men” and

my father says “they are fighting for freedom.

Perhaps if women had fought for

their emancipation, it wouldn’t

have taken so long.”

And while I am angry at first

and say, “men are not a

system of government to overthrow,

they are everything

and how can we fight

our fathers, brothers, children”

there is another part of me

lost in the front lines of a

women’s battalion, women in arms

with uniforms and medals and

all the play and stage of war,

they are defending the city of ladies.