ironing it all out

I'm deep in writing and reading (which is both more rewarding and also more lonely than I remember, the last time I went this deep down the hole) so I wanted to not forget about poetry. And leave you with some more of my favorite stuff from another of my favorite Scottish poets, Vicki Feaver,  that I was lucky enough to hear read during Scottish week 4 years ago, when I hatched my plot to move to Scotland.

Here is the exquisite Ironing, taken from The Poetry Archive (poem published in Girl in Red and Other Poems). And an interview she did. She's my model for what Scottish women are like.

Ironing

by Vicki Feaver

I used to iron everything:

my iron flying over sheets and towels

like a sledge chased by wolves over snow;

the flex twisting and crinking

until the sheath frayed, exposing

wires like nerves. I stood like a horse

with a smoking hoof,

inviting anyone who dared

to lie on my silver padded board,

to be pressed to the thinness

of dolls cut from paper.

I’d have commandeered a crane

if I could, got the welders at Jarrow

to heat me an iron the size of a tug

to flatten the house.

Then for years I ironed nothing.

I put the iron in a high cupboard.

I converted to crumpledness.

And now I iron again: shaking

dark spots of water onto wrinkled

silk, nosing into sleeves, round

buttons, breathing the sweet heated smell

hot metal draws from newly-washed

cloth, until my blouse dries

to a shining, creaseless blue,

an airy shape with room to push

my arms, breasts, lungs, heart into.