Jo Pestel
Winter sheets
Zipped into furry jackets, we'd slice open
the kitchen door on frosty dusk
me clutching after my mother as we slithered
down the path to lines of washing
gone different from when we hung them out.
The tea-towels had become ghosts
from comic strips, had grown
slanting feet and hands, could stand,
walk, dance on the crunching grass
resisted all attempts to fold them. The sheets
were people now, purposeful, unbending,
locked in an iron clasp by stubborn pegs;
we laughed as they creaked in protest
when we edged them sideways
through the door, their coldness,
the huge whiteness too big for the kitchen.
My father helped, my fingers tingled
as they thawed, the sheets grew limp,
were subjugated, drips sizzling.
The sheets I wash are
hunter green, king sized. Other things
come labelled large, extra-large, XXL.
Why is it only beds and bed-linen
that are 'king' and 'queen'? Once,
my bed was bright and I ruled half a kingdom; now I wake to find my arms stretched, fingers curling on emptiness.
Tonight I'll heave our sheets onto the line
knowing the frost will come
in hard waves, will tighten, make rigid;
forms hanging over sculptured grass,
breath grown icy.
the kitchen door on frosty dusk
me clutching after my mother as we slithered
down the path to lines of washing
gone different from when we hung them out.
The tea-towels had become ghosts
from comic strips, had grown
slanting feet and hands, could stand,
walk, dance on the crunching grass
resisted all attempts to fold them. The sheets
were people now, purposeful, unbending,
locked in an iron clasp by stubborn pegs;
we laughed as they creaked in protest
when we edged them sideways
through the door, their coldness,
the huge whiteness too big for the kitchen.
My father helped, my fingers tingled
as they thawed, the sheets grew limp,
were subjugated, drips sizzling.
The sheets I wash are
hunter green, king sized. Other things
come labelled large, extra-large, XXL.
Why is it only beds and bed-linen
that are 'king' and 'queen'? Once,
my bed was bright and I ruled half a kingdom; now I wake to find my arms stretched, fingers curling on emptiness.
Tonight I'll heave our sheets onto the line
knowing the frost will come
in hard waves, will tighten, make rigid;
forms hanging over sculptured grass,
breath grown icy.
Jo Pestel is Irish and is published in magazines in the UK and Ireland, and in Beyond Bedlam (Anvil 1997).
Page(s) 11
magazine list
- Features
- zines
- 10th Muse
- 14
- Acumen
- Agenda
- Ambit
- Angel Exhaust
- ARTEMISpoetry
- Atlas
- Blithe Spirit
- Borderlines
- Brando's hat
- Brittle Star
- Candelabrum
- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
- Coffee House, The
- Dream Catcher
- Equinox
- Erbacce
- Fabric
- Fire
- Floating Bear, The
- French Literary Review, The
- Frogmore Papers, The
- Global Tapestry
- Grosseteste Review
- Homeless Diamonds
- Interpreter's House, The
- Iota
- Journal, The
- Lamport Court
- London Magazine, The
- Magma
- Matchbox
- Matter
- Modern Poetry in Translation
- Monkey Kettle
- Moodswing
- Neon Highway
- New Welsh Review
- North, The
- Oasis
- Obsessed with pipework
- Orbis
- Oxford Poetry
- Painted, spoken
- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
- Poetry London
- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
- Poetry Review, The
- Poetry Salzburg Review
- Poetry Scotland
- Poetry Wales
- Private Tutor
- Purple Patch
- Quarto
- Rain Dog
- Reach Poetry
- Review, The
- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
- Seventh Quarry, The
- Shearsman
- Smiths Knoll
- Smoke
- South
- Staple
- Strange Faeces
- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
- Tolling Elves
- Ugly Tree, The
- Weyfarers
- Wolf, The
- Yellow Crane, The