KNITTING

One week in Shanghai

I watched every morning:

An old woman sat on a park bench

and knit, black yarn spooling

from a paper bag.

And each day she ended

by unraveling all her work.

I inherited my grandmother’s knitting basket

and when she was young

my daughter took scissors to every soft skein

leaving only the single pink slipper

Grandma finished the week she died.

Now, years later my daughter remembers

And finds the lone pink slipper.

Teach me to knit, she says, and

I’ll make you the other one.

They are yours.

Last week we talked about our losses

past and those to come.

I felt even more the unmentionable ones

and I remembered the antidote for grief

is one small motion after another, like knitting.

jam