Three After Humaira Abid, by Mary Ellen Talley

Sacred Games 1, by Humaira Abid (USA, b. Pakistan) contemporary. Image courtesy of the artist.

The Fear and Grit of Woman
           
She packs clothing 
made of pine and wenge wood: 
two shirts, a cap, a strand of prayer beads,
and holy book wrapped in cloth.
What lies under grains of fabric?
Is this refugee baggage 
from one woman 
leaving her native country 
a vestige of what’s permitted? 
It’s not that she didn’t know 
someone could pry open
her honey-coloured suitcase
with the quilted lining 
made of heartwood and sapwood,
delve straight through
to her centre. She holds the key
and has scored the grain for narrative. 
Although pine is easier to work with, 
she sands and sands the wenge 
with fine grit paper, 
adds pale stain 
as gold as toasted coconut 
while secrets hide
tucked inside side pockets. 
Her finger traces grain
along seams and collars 
of folded shirts. 
She inhabits tensile strength
embedded in a matrix
of her history and decisions, 
with layers of cambium
fashioned of lignin and cellulose
seeping into beads
she rolls between thumb and finger.
The contrast is the dark pistol 
someone laid outside the suitcase
sanded smoother than a threat.

**

Author's Note:  Some of Abid's suitcases online don't have the weapon included. Her carvings are amazing.

Cat's Cradle, *Istri series, by Humaira Abid (USA, b. Pakistan) contemporary. Image courtesy of the artist.

​Instructions from My Mother
  
Safety first. Keep your fingers 
from the edge. Be sure to use 
the insulated trivet beneath the iron 
as it heats
or you’ll scorch the ironing board cover.
 
It’s a joke nowadays, 
“Who does ironing anymore?” 
 
But when I reach for a tablecloth 
scrunched in a drawer 
I sometimes want to iron creases out.
 
When sprucing up my office,                               
I find curtains at IKEA. I think 
the fold lines will come out 
as the fabric hangs. Many months later  
and still sometimes I think 
I’ll fetch the ironing board from upstairs,
slide the flowing white fabric from the rod,
dampen it and iron out the wrinkles. It
would be easy, if I’d only take the time.
 
Ironing used to be a household rite of passage, 
women’s work, like darning socks 
or hemming dresses. 
My mother knew to meld
the household arts of ironing and mending.
 
When she went to work full time,
Mom taught me to sprinkle water
and iron each part of a shirt: 
the front, the side with buttons, 
the side with buttonholes, 
sleeves with the knife crease, 
the cuffs, the back. And finally, 
to finish with a pucker-free collar. 
Mom said a smooth line across 
the shoulder back could make up 
for many imperfections. 
 
I can’t believe 
I’m writing about ironing, 
but by God, this was something 
in life a woman could make go smoothly. 
My modern appliance
emits wet steam at the tap of a button.
But occasionally I plug in 
my mother’s old iron
with the woven cord for little jobs 
that only need, as she would say,
“a lick and a promise.”
It’s the art of display.
Women’s work:
to make the ordinary beautiful.


* "Istri" refers to smoothing iron in Pakistan, and woman/wife in India

Cat's Cradle, Istri series, by Humaira Abid (USA, b. Pakistan) contemporary. Image courtesy of the artist.

​
​Household Adages
 
I am a modern woman.
I do my best to iron 
out life’s wrinkles.
Perhaps only yesterday,
a vibrant CEO mixed 
her metaphors and said, 
“The contract’s ready.
The ball is in their court.
Now it’s just ironing 
out the details.”
 
Everyone knows 
to do a job well 
and get it done pronto,
for we’re all pressed for time.

Mary Ellen Talley

Mary Ellen Talley’s poems have appeared in many journals including Louisville Review, Deep Wild, and Trampoline as well as in multiple anthologies. Her chapbooks are: Postcards from the Lilac City, from Finishing Line Press, Taking Leave from Kelsay Books, and Infusion online at Red Wolf Journal. She resides in Seattle, WA and worked for many years as a school-based speech/language pathologist (SLP.) Her website is www.maryellentalley.com.