Liz Byrne
The magic of the iron as it noses
its hot way into wrinkles, leaves
behind a wake of smoothness
and the hiss of steam and smell
of hot cotton, like making new,
undoing mistakes or soothing
a crying child with long, slow
strokes of the hand – and
I’m a teenager, walking the dog,
hiding in the park while frantic
preparations happen at home.
I don’t want to go back but
I have to and I’m asked to iron
the creases in her veil and I do,
the iron on a low setting,
brown paper between iron and lace
and the netting fights back and
she’s queen for the day.
Liz Byrne lives near Manchester. She won the Best Landscape Poem, Ginkgo Prize 2020 and was placed third in the Ginkgo Prize 2021. Her poetry appears in The Curlew, Obsessed with Pipework, Orbis, Agenda, Butcher’s Dog, Crannog, Strix, The North, Under the Radar, Ink, Sweat and Tears, and Black Iris.
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