#19 Everything was tidied away by Emma McKervey

Everything was tidied away

Everything was tidied away.

She’d started with the clothes on the line

when, standing at the kitchen window,

she saw how it all was in disarray.

So the washing was rehung, ordered

according to colour and size, graduating

the length of the rope, with coordinating pegs.

What did not fit was discretely hidden away.

The children had been bothering her

but she found it helped when she had them stand still

from tallest to smallest, although there was consternation

when it was noticed that this did not go evenly

from eldest to youngest due to a particularly gangly 6 yr old

however when the importance of order was explained to him

he willingly bent his knees to keep the peace.

The garden was next, all those untidy bushes

and masses of dreaming petals were split

into their component parts, laid neatly on the lawn,

the finer leaves fixed to their spot with the aid

of some superglue in case of the event

of any unplanned breezes to upset the precise drills.

By this time it was edging to night.

She rose up onto the points of her toes

to pluck each star as it appeared, to be strung

evenly as a string of beads, wrapped in regular coils,

the vague spatter of Milky Way now presented

as a satisfying thread of lights in banal display

It was with relief then that she could finally rest,

to sleep deep on the crisp starched sheets of her bed.