Ray Carey
Between Pegs
The washing-line was made from electrical cable
And was fixed between very intimidating spikes which
My father had buried deep in the walls like question-marks to
Show perhaps these were the only questions he would ever ask.
Not with the four hands she said she had but six more at least
My mother would drape each wet sheet over her husband’s
Ingenuity. Then she would take an old peg from her mouth
And lay out whatever thought occurred to her at that moment
About the man who looked different without his life companion
A Jack Russell who lived somewhere above his ankles.
Is it a mistake to love anything or anyone too much? she’d ask.
But I hadn’t been hurt enough to know the answer back then.
She would talk about what mattered most to people. Others.
As she moved from peg to peg. Each sentence was a sheet long.
Then each sheet was kissed to see if it was bone dry before she
Would blow away the orange letter left behind by the spring.
Ray Carey is an Irish poet and composer. He was selected by the late Irish Poet Laureate Paul Durcan for his Trinity Workshop Poets and studied writing with the novelist Clark Brown in California. He has composed adaptations of Boucicault and Wilde and lives in Waterford, Ireland. His recent publications include Southword: New International Writing; Innisfree; The Argyle Literary Magazine; The Broken Spine; Meniscus and The Broadkill Review.