Collaboration - Ciarán Carson

I am being paraded through the streets with my head shaved,

with no memory of what I have done to deserve this.

I run a gauntlet of women who call me slut and whore,

staggering under their fusillade of accusation:

What stories did I tell, what lies? What names did I reveal?

What men did I sleep with? What did I do? For what reward?

Or in a catacomb deep under Paris they press gloves

of barbed wire on to my bare hands, and when the wounds have healed

they point to the brambles left on my palms, saying, Surely

these lines of head and heart and mind are those of a traitor.

When you wake I hold you tight, saying, It’s only a dream,

the language of dream has nothing to do with that of life.

And as eventually you sink back into the deep well

of sleep, I wonder if by my words I have betrayed you.

Ciarán Carson. "Collaboration". For All We Know, 2008.