Relic by Carol L. MacKay

February 3, 2023
Poem title: Relic Poet name: Carol L. MacKay Poem: The built-in ironing board came down only once, the lacquered door swollen after a rain of years against the wall, a foot, around its brass knob, my fingers the still cotton-covered plank boomed horizontal, long unemployed, down from its upright oak casket. The kitchen table’s chrome apron was butted against it, a barricade of feeble arborite, powerless to contain the ghosts we heard running down the hallway at 3:15 am, slamming oak doors, French and leaded. We didn’t invite them into the light of day to share the smell of spray starch and Windex, the vision of a foil-coined birthday cake or allow them to polish Aerowax in white knee highs. Surely, they could see we were not as pressed as they. End of poem. Credits and bio: Copyright © Carol L. MacKay Previously published in Prairie Journal, Issue 75, 2020. Carol MacKay’s poems have recently appeared in Prairie Journal, Sea & Cedar, Devour: Art and Lit Canada, Little Thoughts, The Toy (England), The Caterpillar (Ireland), and the League of Canadian Poets’ visual poetry chapbook, Spectral Lines. She was awarded the Magazine Merit Award for Poetry by the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) in 2020.