Good Catholic Girl - Circa 1950 by Judith Quaempts‏

Moira O’Shea.
Bless her heart.
Ten children,
a husband who beats her.
A loud-mouthed bantam man
a pain-in-the-arse drunk
who turns her skin blue
every weekend.

‘T’is your burden
to bear, Moira dear’
her priest says,
‘Offer it up to Him
Who died for your sins.’

At times she thinks
with a guilty twinge
that HE had only one bad day
while hers run into the hundreds.

But Moira O’Shea
doesn’t complain.
She’s a good Catholic girl
brought up to obey.

Besides, who’d take her in,
poor Moira O’Shea, her
with all them mouths to feed?

http://thewritersezine.com/t-zero/archives/2004-texts/2004-01-pp1.shtml