{"id":409,"date":"2011-10-15T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2011-10-15T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ink.verticalplus.co.uk\/archive\/?p=409"},"modified":"2011-10-15T11:00:00","modified_gmt":"2011-10-15T11:00:00","slug":"julia-obriens-posthumous-gift","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/julia-obriens-posthumous-gift\/","title":{"rendered":"Julia O'Brien's 'Posthumous gift…'"},"content":{"rendered":"

Posthumous gift from an atheist daughter<\/span>
 <\/span>
I make her a box from a block of old cherry<\/span>
found in the back room of a wood shop in Hackney.<\/span>
 <\/span>
Inside, I carve a Celtic cross, all sides equal:<\/span>
copied from photos she sent of Iona.<\/span>
 <\/span>
My chisels skip compulsively<\/span>
from amber knotwork to saturn oilstone<\/span>
 <\/span>
then under the lid they recess a cross<\/span>
to precisely mirror and hold the other.<\/span>
 <\/span>
I sand till all roughness has switched to my fingers,<\/span>
and slosh on the wax, buffing over and over.<\/span>
 <\/span>
The fit is so tight that the wave of the grain<\/span>
on the side of the box is barely interrupted but<\/span>
 <\/span>
she dies as I sew a small purse of rum velvet<\/span>
which, faded and dusty now, keeps her box perfect.<\/span>



*Julia O'Brien<\/span> has worked as a copy editor, juggler, woodcarver and mother (ongoing). She has an MA in Creative Writing & Personal Development from Sussex University.<\/span>


('Posthumous gift from an atheist daughter' first published in The Frogmore Papers No.75, 2010)<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Posthumous gift from an atheist daughter I make her a box from a block of old cherryfound in the back room of a wood shop in Hackney. Inside, I carve a Celtic cross, all sides equal:copied from photos she sent of Iona. My chisels skip compulsivelyfrom amber knotwork to saturn oilstone then under the lid they recess a crossto […]<\/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-409","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409","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=409"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}