Amendment

 It's that time of year in Ireland when we do actually get spells of glorious sunshine. 

I'm sitting out back reading a book or whatever and my usual multi-layers just have to be shed. 

That's when I go in search of the summer stuff. 

If I'm lucky it's not in the attic. 

Some of this stuff actually dates back to the last century and is worn threadbare. Not that our summers are so long, quite the opposite, but because summer here is ephemeral I simply don't buy and I wear the same clothes year in year out. 

At times my style, or rather lack of, gets even to me and I bin my glad rags. 

So when summer arrives again I can be sorely caught out....rag-less and full of remorse...

The pic above is the harbour at the end of Lamb's Head, Caherdaniel, Co Kerry.

AMENDMENT

I thought for a head-spin second

that in one of my holier than thou

moments of purge

I’d binned my twenty year old black T-shirt.

Worn stratocumulus in places

and wringer-stretched to my thighs

rather than shrunk neckwards.

The one for which,

despite all my on-line browsing

on Twin Strangers and ILookLikeYou,

I couldn’t net a doppelgänger.

 

It was a second of hair-shirt outrage

and I have form in this area;

there was the tan linen jacket

that had morphed into my torso

and the cream cotton trousers

memento of Summers eternal

too threadbare to even recycle

and still seasonally mourned.

 

When I finally turned it up

having up-ended a whole drawer full of Summer

it was like hearing Kitty thud through the cat flap

after an long unofficial leave of absence

or a last seen today at … on your WhatsApp profile

after a long haul flight.

Still on the radar after all this time

my twenty year old long black T-shirt

and no need to make amends.

Copyright 2022 Cathy Leonard All rights reserved