Both Ends Against the Middle – a poem by Mairi Murphy

Both Ends Against the Middle by Mairi Murphy

Mothers knit the streets together:
picking up dropped stitches of the careworn
darning tears, dispensing
gallus compassion, doling out
rampant favouritism –
cheeky bisoms shouting the odds,
one slap fits all.

Everyone named, everyone known,
doors open, falling out, falling in,
swinging lampposts, chalking beds,
deliberate wild but observed
hardly a childless house.

In Closes, cheek by jowl, sisters & aunties
taking in stairs, washing, ironing, mending
making do:
busy hands of the frustrated,
flummoxed, joyful, skint.

Before stone carved altars,
peaceful worship, painted beauty,
time to think, a short walk
from destitution.
Keep my children safe.
Keep my man in work.

Mairi Murphy’s poem Both Ends Against the Middle is taken from Daughters, Wives, Resilient Lives, Poets at the Long Table Amazon Press, 2022. A collaboration with Mairi, Kathryn Metcalfe, Lesley Traynor and Morag Smith.

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