Classic and Contemporary Poetry
MY MOTHER LEFT ME, by KAREN SWENSON Poet's Biography First Line: 24 pairs of unmatched white gloves Last Line: She left me. Subject(s): Death; Gloves; Legacies; Mothers & Daughters; Dead, The; Mittens; Muffs | ||||||||
24 pairs of unmatched white gloves - kid, cotton, and the summer web of Irish crochet - those pinched fingers never fit anyone. They are the leftovers from the clutch and carry of her ladyhood left on counters, lost in pews and taxicabs meant to feel nothing and leave no prints. I keep them in the bottom drawer and wear my hands raw in winter. She willed me one pair of pigskin driving gloves soft with her sweat, splayed at the seams worn into the shape of her grip on the wheel. Those gauntlets her death threw down I pick up from Buffalo to Bozeman. They hold themselves loose on my hands as though hers lie over mine while I ease the wheel through turns of fortune wearing the drive she left me. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE MITTEN SONG by MARIE LOUISE ALLEN ON AN OLD MUFF by FREDERICK LOCKER-LAMPSON IN FREIBURG STATION by RUPERT BROOKE THE ROMANCE OF A GLOVE by HENRY SAVILE CLARKE DI'S MITTEN by WILLIAM CLYDE FITCH ELINDA'S GLOVE by RICHARD LOVELACE AN EMPTY GLOVE by JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY |
|