I tried to do something really fast,
a sewing thing, like the Brave Little Tailor
only instead of giants—Twenty Coffee Cozies
At One Blow. I pinned them all in their rough-cut state
onto a long stretch of muslin on the quilting
machine and Ready-Set-Go. But their edges
curled around the hopping foot and stuck
the needle every time till finally near the end
the needle broke and ruined one little brown
calico cozy with round orange and yellow-gold
flowers on spiky light green stems.
You better stop. I said it out loud several times
until I listened and went upstairs to find lunch.
I had egg salad and tomato soup from a can
which, I have a friend who says Life’s too short
to eat bad food, but I have another friend
who says, Oh, I love that stuff, I don’t
care. Neither one was the friend
who called right after lunch to tell me
she’d heard the post office lady explain
to some Mexicans trying to send a giant
box back home, You have to understand,
there’s no surface anymore, there’s only air.
I sat on the floor under the wall phone
in the kitchen and we thought about that
till she had to go wash her hair and sure enough,
later that night, she sent me a poem through the air—
it landed on my screen, blew out
of her hairdryer, is what she said.
When I hung up the phone after lunch I didn’t know
what to do with myself, I couldn’t get a hold
on anything, but I needed black yarn and
it’s hardly ever wrong, I told myself, to go buy yarn.
So I went to the little Jo-Ann’s nearby, where I
used to work, hoping they’d have it and I’d not
have to drive all the way up to the big store in Hudson
and Hurray! they had it and I had many coupons and also
it was all on sale so I got the black I needed plus a big
bunch of variegateds in blues and plummy purples,
coppers and greens, and five or six more
that looked like harvest or straw-into-gold.
I heaped my basket high and when I went
to check out, Sherry and Liz said,
How’re those grandbabies doing? I told them
all about how big the boys are, and what the boys are saying now,
and they smiled at me, those two women,
the way you smile at happiness you understand.
Then I said bye and walked out the double doors
with my big bag of yarn, all those colors, and
You just won’t believe, I told the yarn as
I set the bag in the car beside me,
all the things you are going to be.