‘My friends think I’m crazy’, she said through
tightly stifled tears. ‘But I see mothers and babies
sitting on the park bench and wheeling their prams,
and I talk to them, they’re so real; but when I turn around
they disappear. I’m scared there’s something wrong with me’.
This village was where a Mother and Baby Home
was once located. I assure her I do not believe
she is going crazy. These mothers have returned to
reveal what suffering they went through and what
the village refused to see. ‘But when will I stop
seeing them?’ Her hands scrunched into fists.
‘When we no longer need to be seen’, they replied.
Jimmy O’Connell was born in Dublin. He has been writing and performing his work in various venues for many years. His poetry has appeared in The Baltimore Review, Poetry Ireland Review, Poetry for a New Ulster, The Wexford Bohemian, Voices from the Land and Skylight47 among others.