<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
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third floor walk up<\/strong><\/p>\n let’s take up a collection <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Emily Hart<\/strong> has worked on both sides of the gate — as an award winning writer under various pens and as writing tutor and editor.\u00a0 She revels in a riotously monastic life.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" third floor walk up let’s take up a collection and have a lift put in says one neighbor as we pass on the stairs he going out for a smoke me pretending my knees are not cursing all those years genuflecting and kneeling in church. down the long hall inside my flat […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11015","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11015","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11015"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11015\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11186,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11015\/revisions\/11186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11015"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11015"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11015"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nand have a lift put in
\nsays one neighbor
\nas we pass on the stairs
\nhe going out for a smoke
\nme pretending my knees
\nare not cursing
\nall those years genuflecting
\nand kneeling in church.
\ndown the long hall
\ninside my flat i slip off my knapsack
\nbrew a pot of tea
\npaying homage to the builders
\nin our family line,
\nshare toast
\nwith the birds that come
\nto the balcony.
\ni look out across the courtyard
\nat another balcony
\nwhere a woman tends
\na garden in buckets.
\ni know she is probably
\njudging my scraggly array of plants
\nbut we wave and smile.
\nlet her judge, i think
\none night my birds will teach me
\ntheir secret
\nand i will stand on the balustrade
\nand fly.<\/p>\n