{"id":334,"date":"2011-08-01T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2011-08-01T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ink.verticalplus.co.uk\/archive\/?p=334"},"modified":"2011-08-01T11:00:00","modified_gmt":"2011-08-01T11:00:00","slug":"michelle-mcgranes-exhibit-a","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/michelle-mcgranes-exhibit-a\/","title":{"rendered":"Michelle McGrane's 'Exhibit 'A''"},"content":{"rendered":"

Exhibit 'A'<\/span>

The McGillivray barn<\/span>
before the family murders:<\/span>
To the right you can make out<\/span>
the timbered stalls, the chaff<\/span>
scattered across the stone floor<\/span>
and at the far end<\/span>
the open double doors;<\/span>

then, you may notice<\/span>
the recycled iron hooks hammered<\/span>
into the central crossbeam.<\/span>
Six of them, newly installed<\/span>
by the blacksmith who carried out<\/span>
the instruction insisting<\/span>
with a shake of his head<\/span>
they were mounted too high<\/span>
for halters and bridles.<\/span>

You won't hear the children's<\/span>
laughter as they clamber over<\/span>
the combine harvester in the yard<\/span>
or see Sissy McGillivray, framed<\/span>
in the kitchen door on baking day,<\/span>
wipe her hands on her apron,<\/span>
call them in for lemonade.<\/span>





*Michelle McGrane<\/span> lives in Johannesburg and blogs at <\/span>Peony Moon<\/a> . Her collection <\/span>The Suitable Girl<\/span> is published by <\/span>Pindrop Press<\/a> in the UK  and<\/span> Modjaji Books<\/a> in South Africa.<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Exhibit 'A'The McGillivray barnbefore the family murders:To the right you can make outthe timbered stalls, the chaffscattered across the stone floorand at the far endthe open double doors;then, you may noticethe recycled iron hooks hammeredinto the central crossbeam.Six of them, newly installedby the blacksmith who carried outthe instruction insistingwith a shake of his headthey were […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","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-334","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334","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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=334"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}