Joan McCormick ( auntySlosh)

Remembering Our Home Place

Mother was four foot ten—we grew with the practical.
The lunatic stretched her spine—knuckled its ridge
with tiny bones, arched, then straighten to fire flat irons.

In that was a sly art, skill kept the black lead off
Irish homespun linen, ways to test the metal as would
a smithy, with his tongue, lick. Times I saw her spit

blowing with pursed lips, or the wet finger dip, the sound
of searing as spittle boiled from finger pads. The cloyed
steam risen ‘neath iron weighed for the wet-press-cloth.

The trick of the soap-bar on the inside crease of a trouser-
to keep that sharp look that went with slicked down man hair.
And we nestled while she sweated irons from fire to fabric

to trivet. In play, we pressed hankies, tea cloths, pillow
ticking, tested the coolness with baby fingers. Washhouse day
the boiler belched smoke; whites scrubbed by hand peeled

the skin and ached fingers. The boiling, the scent, lather
and slime; the steamed windows coated in railway soot; 
a broom handle halved the right tool to lift scalded rags

for rinse and wring. Nights when she worked out, men battled;
she had the war effort to uphold or be branded with another iron.
Five under eight, Great Aunt Maude sat this hard chair alone.

Protestant and English, too fat to fight, scurried into class
fingers pointing their way in horror. Demands dear daughter's
first school year not be spent with a dirty Roman Catholic.

Origin Denial by Joan

Wooden Sea by Joan