Ironing and Woodwork
By John Grey
January 15, 2023
January 15, 2023
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Iron touches down on wet cloth
as my mother hums along to the steam, a lilting hiss, a hissing lilt, as her arm glides from side to side. It’s a happy song for a monotonous task, fabric to be rendered seamlessly flat, a work shirt on a padded board like noteless sheet music for her melody. In the basement, my father is master of the lathe, woodturning, sculpting chair legs with parting tool and spindle gouge. His tune has words, and the steady beat of shoe on concrete, to go with a throat like corrugated tin, and the steady sound of scraping. Time moves on inexorably yet it lingers for my memories. I’m eleven and standing on a stair. I’ve a parent in each ear. |
John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in Sheepshead Review, Stand, Poetry Salzburg Review and Red Weather. Latest books, Covert, Memory Outside The Head, and Guest Of Myself, are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in the McNeese Review, Rathalla Review and Open Ceilings.