21st March 2026

 

world poetry day

bringing marital harmony

in Wales

© Rachel Green March 2026

With Covered Head

Mother’s gloves were worn for church

Sunday mornings, Easter, Christmas;

a thirty minute walk down Callow Hill

where Protestant women slept away the morning

then up Bear Hill, steep and penitent

the Anglican St Lawrence's glowering

across the timelocked village,

through the graveyard to the kissing gate,

clanging iron-on-iron to the cinder part

between fields of horses from the wealthy people

with BMWs and Jaguars and second houses

and a timeshare in Benidorm,

to the old infant's school, abandoned and converted

into a community hall for Catholics

to gather for morning mass, confession, communion.

Then back on with the gloves,

lace in summer, fur in winter

for the long walk home

wrapped in the smell of incense and mothballs

and the communion wafer

stuck to the roof of our mouths.

© Rachel Green March 2026