Dormitory Ghosts
After lights out here they come
in unwieldy crocodile.
The girl who claimed she saw
God’s face in a digestive biscuit.
The girl who went to Matron
suffering with stigmata.
The girl who believed
she was Mary Magdalen.
The girl who drew a moustache
in charcoal on the Virgin Mary.
Then comes the one expelled
for climbing out of the window
to meet the caretaker’s son.
The one who scratched the word penis
on the music room piano, keeping us
in detention until she confessed.
The one who feared she’d
immaculately conceived
and was pregnant with a frog.
Last in line, everyone’s heroine,
the head prefect who heard voices
telling her to set fire to the school.
Jennie Farley is a published poet, workshop leader and teacher. Her poetry has featured in magazines including New Welsh Review, Under the Radar, The Interpreter’s House, Prole. My Grandmother Skating (Indigo Dreams) her first collection was published in 2016. Her new collection Hex (IDP) is due out 2018 .