The Nun Who Grew Wings

This is one of my favourite poems. It's by a Franciscan friar who was very good to me when I was young, and gave me many public speaking lessons. I hope he'll forgive me for publishing it online; it's from his book, Face the Music:

The Nun Who Grew Wings
by Iain Duggan

Having appeared ordinary all her life,
Sister Perpetual Motion,
On the cusp of old age
Developed gargantuan wings,
Which sprouted from her back almost
Overnight and looked anything but angelic;
More like two ginormous trotters,
God bless the mark!

Next thing she began knocking sparks
Out of an old fiddle that
Had lain dead as a dodo in its case
For the best part of forty years.

The she was then
Outside the Permanent TSB,
Winding herself up like a spring,
Tackling a humoresque, arching her torso,
Busking for peanuts in her green enamel habit
Like nobody before or since.