Gifts From My Mother (Poem)

Never these:

The antique brush that did not touch your hair

But always sat before your mirror.

The silver bracelet from your favorite aunt

That you wore to enhance your forbidding elegance.

The Mont Blanc pen you prized as a understated symbol

But found my question of “does it write well,” vulgar .

The gifts you bestowed cannot be touched

And are beyond compare:

A mind made razor-sharp

Honed against the whetstone of your obdurate distance.

A heart with hidden chambers

Filled to overflowing with a magpie’s assortment of kindnesses.

A language in which words become more beautiful

By the flow and tumble over your stony disregard.

So I thank you again and again.

The love I bear you remains my greatest burden, my greatest treasure.

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