Wooden Clothes Peg Man Loves Wooden Clothes Peg Woman Poem by Dónall Dempsey

My wooden clothes peg man
kisses your
wooden clothes peg woman.
Your wooden clothes peg woman
blushing
just like you

& so by proxy we
acted out our desires
transferring them
to the clothes pegs
just as when we first
infused them
alive!

Such faithful
puppets of our feelings.
We felt everything
they felt.
We even let them sleep
together
in a cigarette pack bed
a matchbox for a pillow.

Mostly
the wooden clothes peg “us”
just held hands
& smiled.
“It’s nice being us
...together! ”

Times they weren’t
busy being us
they’d go back
to their day job
hanging up clothes.

A tea towel
every now & then
a vest here
now a trousers
or there a dress.
They were still
recognisably us.

We had drawn
little smiley faces
on them
& they’d make
the trousers & the dresses
wave back.

That evening they’d
return to being
“us.”
I think
they enjoyed
being us
just as much
as us did!