Four poems by David Cooke

Washing

Home again each month like a stranger,
he has three days’ turnaround
between trips for you to wash
his gear – which leaves you
barely two when, on his final day,
you’d rinse off his luck.

So let him mooch with mates,
while you heat the copper and soak
his long johns, socks and ganseys
in that soup of frothing water,
teasing fibres matted
with blood, scales, spatter.

And when you’ve sluiced
and sluiced the greasy suds away,
lift the dripping weight of wool
that you will wring to dankness
and then force down
your mangle’s tight-lipped throat.

If weather’s bad, God help us!
as once again you pray for days
of providential breezes –
for though he never says,
you know he’ll love that freshness:
its yielding warmth, its laundered smell.