Aileen Kelly
Stung
“In the kindness of nature, where there’s nettles
there’s dock”, the great green bandage to juice
and wrap stung legs and silly fingers
that grabbed the burn and came to mouth
blistered and thick as if you’d angered the bees.
“And there’s use for everything if you watch
those that know.” Scraps for the hens,
old gloves for mittens, strawberries
under the clothesline to fatten their flesh on drips.
When prayer is so gone that you’re caught
helpless with wet eyes, tight lungs, just to happen
on a journal’s photo of (a painting of) (an idea
of) a bone man on his knocked knees before
a cellar wall of scratched grey blocks
when you’ve eaten last
the stray small dog that licked your wounds clean
the husk voice of memory still insists
“my brew of nettle and honey
‘ll pink that smile that aunty loves to see.”
Page(s) 92
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