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Kathleen Kenny


Irish Linen

From the beginning
visible by his absence,
missing the linen fields
 
in their feast of blue pastel.
If you had the day
you could spend it

staring by the edge,
watch it being pulled up by the roots
where the flax was.

Before being spread on the bleach greens
it was soaked in troughs
dug out by the road.

On hot days Nellie and Teresa
pulled off their stockings,
plodged the unspun cloth;

never needed to worry
about their father
turning up to tell them off.