Eli

Eli said, “I can’t abide a man who wastes words.”
+++So I said nothing, and we worked alongside each other and that old snapper gnawed away at my stomach so hard I was sure that if I did open my mouth only blood would come out.
+++I saw her first, dun skirt billowing, then those coils braided on her fine head.
+++She wasted no words telling him what their troubles were.
+++For one breath, I thought he would crumble, just as the red earth had crumbled beneath our shovels that day.
+++Eli stepped out of the hole and walked to the house.

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JoAnne McKay was born to a family of slaughterers in Romford, Essex. Reived to Scotland by a red-haired man, she now lives in a very small Dumfriesshire village where she combines motherhood, work and a Masters degree with mixed success. She has published two poetry pamphlets, The Fat Plant in 2009 and Venti in 2010.