The box came back without a note.
In it, the woolen shawl I bought
to keep her warm, the white
and gold of winter sun, made
in Scotland. I felt five again,
little girl with a frizzy perm
looking down at her shoes.
Lonely, too, as when I knew
by her touch my mother’s
disappointment giving birth
to a daughter, bound to become
a woman like herself.
I was no lovely woolen shawl
she could return
without an explanation.
Elisabeth Murawski is the author of Heiress, Zorba’s Daughter, which won the May Swenson Poetry Award, Moon and Mercury, and three chapbooks. Still Life with Timex won the Robert Phillips Poetry Chapbook Prize and has just been published by Texas Review Press. A native of Chicago, she currently lives in Alexandria, VA.
Latest posts by Elisabeth Murawski (see all)
- A Gift Returned - 23rd May 2021