My first memory
is my mother ironing
while I played on the floor,
safe in the quiet aura
of her love,
my father away at work,
my sister not yet born
though surely conceived, by then,
as my mother hummed softly,
the hot surface of the iron
gliding across my father’s shirts,
hissing as it released steam,
the hypnotic swing
of its cord before me,
my childhood stretching
off into infinity,
my mother and father
still deep in the trance
of their young marriage,
doing everything
to make us one,
and I, beloved son,
cementing the wisdom
of their desire.
Ironing
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Rob Mustard 