Mom and her Pfaff

Mom didn’t wear much
perfume or make up it was
her sewing machine that
adorned her like her
ubiquitous peach lipstick

Mom confessed it was
the cutting out she hated
the destruction before
the creation before the
machine’s whirrrrrrrrr

I sought fancy details
(the very ones she abhorred)
ruffles, tucks, tweaks and slippery
fabric were famous for delaying
the revered final stitch

Later she stiched flowers onto
my wedding gown which I wasn’t
so wild about, I didn’t see her
bowing to my fancy, they were
her love and honor sewed in – -

The time the gong chased
me from my kitchen cabinet Mom
followed Sue’s frightened prsence
sans sewing machint, that time
Only withered windex, comet, Tide…

Post spectrum discovery she
sewed Sam’s shirts in a Motel 6 room
Her voice the foot pedal, “He needs
to learn. He needs to know.
You need to be…...”

On Hawthorne Avenue, only late at night
when her dailiness was past
machine went to table top

her quiet, dutiful, necessary
love: useful, wearable art
sewn stich by stitch

See more progress on: write a (sloppy, half-formed if need be) poem every day (or so) during October 2010