Connie
Nicola Jackson

The countess stops in the doorway.
What plans and schemes are here
as pale light washes the raw-planked floor.
She presses the heels of her button-gloved hands
together, holds dust-moted air like a lily.

Room for the easel by the window,
The dressing case to go upstairs.
She pulls a brown overall from the dun valise;
then over her head with it to tab her two hips,
telling of just the one child.

She steps through to the low back kitchen,
admires the stone larder slab, the bleached
wooden slats framing the chipped sink.
The table bears a blue coarse jug
with bright little herbs that tell of the season.

And a note, cream paper, a flourish of script –
"Read these – they may be of interest." Pages curl.
She turns to bang a zinc kettle under the gush
of the tap; waits for the carter to come in from the back.
Words will rise, they will rise. They will rise.

In 1906 Countess Constance Markievicz rented a cottage previously occupied by the poet Padraic Colum. He left revolutionary literature behind and thus began her Irish Republican career. She led fighting in the Easter Rising of 1916 and later served as a minister in the Dail parliament, after a death sentence was commuted on grounds of her sex.

Nicola Jackson was one of the first women to enter Clare College, Cambridge. She has worked in community education and now enjoys time to write in Cumbria and London. Her poetry is published in a number of journals and has been Commended in the Hippocrates prize 2016.

Well Versed is edited by Jody Porter – wveditor@gmail.com
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