Hairbrush Copyright © Florence Cox 2011

Borrowed hairbrush on the sill,
rich with a bird’s nest of your brown hair...
Yes, it is brown still; you are young.

Younger than me, sister,
bossy and bright and always talking,
mind like a lance.

When we were all stymied, you found
the obscure woodworking tool
that filled the impossible gap in the crossword;
mixed your own jolly compositions
elegantly with Chopin;
picked forest berries faster than a flock
of ravenous birds;
read enough books to fill a barn.

You mocked me as you hugged the bull,
mended the mixer, the baler, fixed
the tractor, wrecked your back
with a passion for action,
swinging bales and sacks,
shovelling muck,
wrenching stuck lambs into the world.

I see you now in that dreary northern field
bent double, planting sixty thousand
lettuce seedlings out by hand,
pregnant with your son.

Borrowed hairbrush on the sill,
rich with the sickening harvest of your hair...

How will they ever fit all that you are
under a small patch of ground?