Musquash Sunday Poem by Sheena Blackhall

Musquash Sunday



On Monday, Marigold's sheets clunked in a Persil tide,
To and fro, the mechanical arms of the washer
Embracing their drowned sweat.
On Tuesday, carbolic scrubbed the weekly stripes
From her husband's collars.

The ironing board arose
On its wooden scaffold, to receive the marital laundry
Morning winds had slapped away the wet.

On Wednesday, sour floor clothes steeped in bleach
Had whitened sooty hearth with grits of Vim
Brasses were Brassoed, front door steps were scoured.

On Thursday, Marigold lavender-polished the lino
Newspapers scrunched on window panes, raised rainbows.

On Friday, she baked tea cakes, made meat loaf
Worm its way through a bloodied mincer
Her Singer machine with its single metal tooth
Devoured skirt hems, ploughed rows of thread on curtains.

On Saturday, she fetched her groceries home,
De-plumed a chicken, cleaned it like a whistle.
Hair, kerbi-gripped in a net, week's chores over
She plumped her flesh in the bath like a blanched onion.
Pipe-cleaners clenched her curls for the Day of Rest.

On Sunday, came the Seventh Day transformation
Marigold's steps from drudge to glamour-puss:
Peachy corsets moulding bust and waist.
Sateen hooks and eyes, low-slung suspenders,
Holding aloft sheer nylons, perfectly seamed.

A string of cultured pearls at her lined throat,
She slipped on court shoes, shimmied into her dress,
Max Factored her nose, patted her well-pinked cheeks.
The Coty lipstick, Rhapsody in Rouge
Slid from its gold sheath like a crimson bullet.

On went the rings, over the creamed knuckles
And then, across the shoulders, a sparrow with Angels Wings,
Her musquash coat (reward for a housewife's beavering) ,
Its mock mink pelts (some furrier'd made a killing) lined with silk.
Marigold, in all glory, took the kirk by storm.

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