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
- Blue-Eyed Ann by Tobias Smollett
- Николай Гумилев – Он воздвигнул свой храм на горе
- Fool’s Money Bags poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- To Youth by Robert Herrick
- ” As faith thus sanctified the warrior’s crest” by William Wordsworth
- A Christmas Carol by William Topaz McGonagall
- Sonnet 4: Unthrifty loveliness, why dost thou spend by William Shakespeare
- By the Spring, at Sunset by Vachel Lindsay
- A Watch-String by William Strode
- Think No More, Lad poem – A. E. Housman
- Near Avalon by William Morris
- Владимир Высоцкий – Песенка про мангустов
- A Ritual To Read To Each Other by William Stafford
- Валерий Брюсов – Искушение
- Robert Burns: Wandering Willie: First Version
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).
