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At the wash basin I watched you shaving,
never wanting to miss a minute, my face
level with the basin staring up as you
pulled faces for a change. Soaping, scraping
with open blade or new fangled razor,
you dipped and tapped metal to ceramic and back
to jawline again, stretching the skin taut on your neck
until I passed the towel. You patted on cologne,
now smooth and handsome. I looked and looked,
not learning but catching your love of mirrored
self.
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You never cared for make-up, never taught us how.
A pink box of powder clouds rarely opened,
dust on all the little pots. Only lipsticks rubbed smooth,
the muted ones – never loud. You had little time
for mirrors, a lick and a spit would do. You brushed
your hair while putting on your shoes, chose your
alternating teacher’s dresses like so many uniforms.
And when you did put on your ‘war paint’
we teased your dolled-up face. There was no chair
at your dressing table, never time
to sit.
© Eithne Hand, from Fox Trousers (Salmon Poetry, 2021)
Picture 10127419, August 1930 advertisement, image copyright Mary Evans
Eithne Hand is a writer, radio and theatre producer from Greystones, Co Wicklow in Ireland. In 2021 she was an Artist in Residence at the Hawk’s Well Theatre in Sligo. Her first poetry collection Fox Trousers was launched by Salmon Poetry in February 2021 and her second collection will be published in spring 2024.
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