Barbara Barnes

Weary

is my reply. A soft-spoken word
with pearl grit at its centre.

It harks to yesteryear, endless days
spent ladling a weak broth,

the maid caught in the mantle mirror,
her gaze ringed as a raccoon’s.

Weary wears a good cloth of faded blue,
stitches holding fast.

It’s a womanly word, over-borrowed
by the lovelorn when this world disappoints.

In fact it’s more akin to a pebble found
pocket-deep, steadying anxious fingers

as evening draws out a sob. It attends
to a sadness it would never cause.

Know this, when I’m in a state
weary will gather me tight,

weary will get me home, and later
decline the offer of a fireside seat.

The latch on, the cat out,
weary climbs the staircase step by step by step

pausing at the landing switch
for breath, then lets the darkness come.

Barbara Barnes is an actor and poet. Her poems have appeared in Under the Radar, The Interpreter’s House, Poetry London, Butcher’s Dog, Brixton Review of Books, Ambit, Arc Poetry, The Alchemy Spoon, Perverse and Black Iris. Her collection Hound Mouth was published by Live Canon in 2022.

Barbara wrote the following about her poem:

I love when an everyday word reveals its shadow meaning. At breaktime during a fraught dress rehearsal, I asked my director how she was feeling. ‘Weary’, she said, before striding back into the theatre. Her choice of that word held both deep fatigue and a resolve to carry on regardless. It was very moving.