- When in the Hour, and: Fulling
When in the Hour
I needed a hand so hard against my skin I would have taken a slap another person's body running into me on the street I would have taken the rough grain of unshorn skin tang of onion or beer sentences I don't understand in rooms I won't see again anything even wedding ring's gold clink on the nightstand in one gasp it would all come into me those hands the bones in the thighs spine bumps through skin even your husband I would have taken that. I did.
Fulling
Not dense sac of cell felt looping shut with every needlethrust fiber in any quantity matted together
Hair doesn't make sense, body pushing dead matterthrough the scalp.
Take the hand so through the machine we touch wooltogether and her hands guide meIn the bucket hot water, raw wool Did your motherlove me that time?When she thought I would make sons or daughters for you, fixyour lost and broken pieces
In one corner dustpile these are the thousands of cells I loseevery day without noticing [End Page 109]
How hairshirt falls from the body like a shell we liveddeep in chivalry the duty of the cloth
By the end just rocking spines into softness, all collating to allThis is bound up in itself [End Page 110]
Éireann Lorsung was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, but currently lives in Nottingham, England. Her first book of poetry, Music for Landing Planes By, was published by Milkweed Editions. She also maintains a blog called Two for Joy.