Mending Socks
by Martin Willitts Jr.
Based on Archibald J. Motley’s painting “Mending Socks”, 1924
She has mended a generation of socks.
She is old as the waxed fruit in the bowl.
Her hands are furrowed as years in the fields.
There were times when she felt
like she would never be done,
she would find herself repairing the hole in the dark.
She would work in her dreams, always
picking threads of cotton.
I would find her in her chair, a soft snore,
the socks on her lap like sad tired children.
I would try not to disturb her, pulling a blanket up.
She would look at me with woolen eyes.
What do think you are doing? I am not done.
When she was in a casket like a knitting basket,
I expected her to scold me for coming home late,
for forgetting my skin was nightshades,
for gambling and consulting with shameful women,
for wearing toes through my socks
like I never seem to care how much it cost to get new ones.
When I saw her with a darning needle in her hand,
I burst into a carnal cry for the years spent wasted.
One of her grandchildren tugged me on the cuff,
Are you the one she loved as much as sewing?
I knew then a generation is held together by threads.
End of the poem
15 random poems
- Lucky by Thomas Lux
- Extempore in the Court of Session by Robert Burns
- Dust of Snow by Robert Frost
- Владимир Степанов – Кто хозяин
- Robert Burns: The Five Carlins: An Election Ballad
- Владислав Ходасевич – Ни розового сада
- Love’s Gleaning Tide by William Morris
- Вера Полозкова – Францу Кафке
- Girl’s Song by William Butler Yeats
- Doomes-Day: The Sixth Houre by William Alexander
- Opifex by Thomas Edward Brown
- Miracles by Paul Hostovsky
- Awaken by Mark Miller
- Absolution by Siegfried Sassoon
- Robert Burns: Address To A Haggis:
Some external links:
Duckduckgo.com – the alternative in the US
Quant.com – a search engine from France, and also an alternative, at least for Europe
Yandex – the Russian search engine (it’s probably the best search engine for image searches).
