PASSING IT ON
Our son’s shirts attend kindergarten
for the third time.
They are still learning how to share.
*
To wear my friend’s lace camisole
I had to become a new person.
Since I was plenty tired of myself,
it was a pleasure.
*
Closets bulging
with gingham castoffs,
calico and rickrack denim,
my mother begs, “Enough.”
But when I gave
her dotted swiss curtains
to the Salvation Army,
she was inconsolable.
One can’t be too careful.
*
I’m in my linen period now.
That casual crumple,
that wrinkled weight,
sustains.
*
a secondhand store.
He pitched his extra pants into the Atlantic
when he started his new life.
Under Ellis Island
whole wardrobes may be mingling
with seaweed,
buckling and bobbing with fish.
I wish for once to be dressed
in something sleek and thin
as original skin.
