In the Confessional at school’s end the priest’s face has the sheen of the girl’s Mary Quant nude lipstick. She fidgets on the hassock. Incense thralls her, a fantasy of hands milking themselves behind the grille. Words hiss. Tell me, my child, tongue-click at cracked lips, flicker in the priest’s groin: exactly what did yous do with him? Three times the question, three times her reply - a Judas crow - I slept with him. She rushes through the penance, twenty-five Hail Mary, seethes down the nave, parts a sea of sleepy motes, scent of lilies, unctuous echoes. Candles in the Mary chapel gutter, flare; Our Lady tails her from under lidded eyes. Mute. Cold stone. The church door groans, clangs shut as she steps out into the yard, out of her vaunt of piety, out of Mother Church. A crow on a grave stone ruffles it’s wings, cackles applause. Breeze tousles her hair; baptism of apple blossom, absolution.
About the Author
Pratibha’s prize-winning pamphlet, A Triptych of Birds and A Few Loose Feathers, comes out in April 2021 with Hedgehog Press. Her work has been published in print and online with The Blue Nib, Indigo Dreams publications Sarasvati and Reach, Fly on the Wall Press, Impspired, and more. It weaves around experiences of childhood as an Irish emigre in 1950s England. Starting late, she graduated from the University of Chichester with a first-class honours degree in Creative Writing at the age of 61.
