Drawn Like Silk

Loreen Heneghan

When they come
in long green coats,
that are cut like wool dresses
furrowed with glass-gazing buttons —
but we know it is a coat, for it covers smooth layers
of silk beneath

When they come
with eyes painted blue,
and skin clear as milk-cream
even though their eyes are not eyes —
and their skin is not so different from the pale cloth
they wear beneath

When they come
we must follow them,
because they will call us out
with names we'll know for our own —
but, oh, how thin the voices, that sound like the shift
of soft threads beneath

When they come
from that other place,
where we remember old truth
we have each lost before our birth —
like light that makes no shadow, or the spindle hands
that draw silk beneath green coats.



Loreen Heneghan's favourite fruit is the nectarine.

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