<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Dried<\/strong><\/p>\n Tough shoulders. There was flaked skin at the back of his neck, leading down beneath the red shirt. His sleeves were rolled up, revealing tiny hairs of red tinged with grey. I made a motion to move near the chickens, and saw beads of sweat fall across his face, like a veil a woman wears on her wedding day.<\/p>\n \u2018Ain\u2019t no good you just standing there Georgia\u2019 he said not looking up. He held the wood tightly in his hands, red blotted with strained white. The sawing back and forth of the wood was dizzying to watch.<\/p>\n \u2018And it isn\u2019t any good for you to stand there in the boiling sun\u2019 I pointed out. He stopped what he was doing and looked up. He smiled and wiped his wrists across his eyebrows, catching the sweat. His red hair was short, but bright, and his eyes were a piercing blue.<\/p>\n \u2018You\u2019ve got you mother\u2019s tongue in you\u2019 he said smiling.<\/p>\n \u2018Ay father, and I\u2019ve got your eyes, and hands. It\u2019s the beauty of nature\u2019 I said. He threw back his head and gave a short bark, too hot and tired to offer any more. I put a hand out and waved him closer.<\/p>\n \u2018Come on, mother will have lunch ready\u2019 I said.<\/p>\n \u2018This wood won\u2019t cut itself\u2019 he said.<\/p>\n \u2018And this lunch won\u2019t eat itself\u2019 I said.<\/p>\n \u2018Always have something don\u2019t you? Come on then\u2019 he said and placed a sweaty and dirty hand around my shoulders. I breathed in the deep mellow smell of sweat and oak, dirt and passion. We went inside.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The next day, father set himself to work again. I sat milking the cows, cherishing the cool shade of the oak roof. The cow kicked quietly, but settled down when I held her close. He took his shirt off today, the sun being too hot that even I, cold Georgia, cold and heartless Georgia, had to remove my cardigan and hat. The warm wind whistled through the buildings.\u00a0 Then, mother came out. Despite the heat, I inherited her coldness, and she wore a drape over her long sleeved dress and tight boots. She merely looked up at the sun, as though she was separate from it, as though it couldn\u2019t touch her. Not if it tried.<\/p>\n \u2018How long does it take to milk a cow?\u2019 she snapped, squinting her eyelids and throwing her head back to catch my eye. I looked to father. He pushed up from the sawing and placed the tool down. He placed his large hands behind his back and stretched.<\/p>\n \u2018Surely you can\u2019t want coffee right now?\u2019 he said.<\/p>\n \u2018I don\u2019t want coffee\u2019 she said, reluctantly pulling her eyes to him. I sat near the cow and tried to become as small as possible.<\/p>\n \u2018Then what the devil do you want?\u2019 he said.<\/p>\n \u2018I want it for the baby, he hasn\u2019t had a drink for an hour now\u2019 she said. My mother was only a little smaller then my father, but here, they looked equal height.<\/p>\n \u2018Can\u2019t you give him your own?\u2019 he said. She turned slowly, as though shy, when really she was staring at me.<\/p>\n \u2018I\u2019m all dried up\u2019 she said, her eyes cursing mine.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n There was ragged breathing. As though cut up with scissors, as though the air we breathed was fragile and made of fabric and nothing, and no one else. It was the dead of night, no sound, not a whisper could be heard apart from us.<\/p>\n \u2018Turn around\u2019 my father said. I turned and lifted up my dress. The moon broke across the stable, and the cows watched us, bored, and chewing over what they were seeing.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n My father was with some boys from the next farm. He looked like an aged oak next to the saplings of others. He had kept his shirt on, but had a line of dirt across his forehead which he just couldn\u2019t seem to touch. He turned his head and caught me looking. He smiled, waved his hand a little, then turned away. I remember the tough skin. I remember it far too well.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Justine Knight<\/strong> is a young writer who stereotypically is obsessed with coffee and books. Has been published by Momaya Press, The Pygmy Giant<\/em>, and small poetry festivals. She is going on to study creative writing at university and dark is her forte.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Dried Tough shoulders. There was flaked skin at the back of his neck, leading down beneath the red shirt. His sleeves were rolled up, revealing tiny hairs of red tinged with grey. I made a motion to move near the chickens, and saw beads of sweat fall across his face, like a veil […]<\/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-9703","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9703","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=9703"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9703\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9705,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9703\/revisions\/9705"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}