Elision and Mal

He rubbed goose fat into the cuffs of his trousers to keep the crease from flattening out. His grandmother ironed creases into his grandfather’s pants, bowsprit vinegar and starch; the haberdasher’s cure for elision and hem. He never did get the gist of the iron, thinking it a waste of temper and swale, his grandmother’s moth-frail knuckles curded into rigs, his grandfather’s pant’s legs gathered into the tuck of his shins. Waste not or want not, or some such banal quip. Quail’s feet and wren’s bladder, the plums in the pudding, be it nutmeat or sage. Thinking this he thought no more, feet curled up into the croup of his thighs, bee’s stings and hornet’s pricks, June’s puckish mal.