A Line Drawing

She draws a line—up, down,
up, down, counting out the things
she should, could do.

Get some hens
dig up the garden
sow and plant.

All that a pencil cannot do
sit on a swing and swing
pick a leaf and wonder.

Look at the web
the spider
has spun.

Bernadette Gallagher lives in County Cork, Ireland.  Her poetry has been published in print and online journals, most recently in Southword 41 and Issue 1 Bealtaine, and Issue 4 Drawn to the Light Press. A selection of her work has been recorded by the University College Dublin Poetry Archive, and a poem has just been added to Words Lightly Spoken podcast.    

She has an essay on Dorothea Herbert (1767-1829) in ‘Irish Women Poets Rediscovered: Readings in poetry from the eighteenth–twentieth century’, edited by Maria Johnston and Conor Linnie published 2021 by Cork University Press. bernadettegallagher.blogspot.ie