Jenny Munro-Hunt

The Drying Green (Glasgow Green, 1732-1977)

Did you take the black poles for trees, perhaps
you took the sheets for ghosts?
The women’s eyes
are humming, low and fast,
talking: you are on their land
and the wind’s.
The cotton and the winceyette
are coaxed cool and stiff
dry, that wind
will knock out your kneecaps
if the women want it.
Tonight the children’s beds
and lovely heads
are perfumed with grass
and April and brewer’s yeast.
Do not cut across this place,
as though it were waste ground,
perhaps you took the ghosts for sheets.

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Jenny Munro-Hunt is a Scottish poet. Her work appears in Raceme, Poetry Scotland, The Interpreter's House, The 6ress and several anthologies. Her poetry was highly commended in the 2022 Winchester Poetry Prize and her debut pamphlet is forthcoming from Black Cat Poetry Press.