Softness

My Mother passed down guilt and the work ethic,
heirlooms that serve through crisis and calm. When

my wife and I met, our pockets held nothing
but palms — it’s the thought that counts.

To her I passed down tee shirts, well-worn, gentle
as nightingales’ feathers — repurposed as nightgowns,

winter and summer. Then two girls knocked on her wombs
door — popped out, and four point seven years later

inherited my tees — shirts climbing the stairs of one
more generation — now floor length over five-year-old

twig legs. Are these cotton shirts safe harbor for my cells
and genes? Are they shield and armor against plague

and nightmare — though soft as tulle? I watch as the older
sucks the pliable neck-ring into her mouth in the universal

need to suckle. Can she taste my imprint — the decade — long
sagas of my life?

How does such softness hold the granite leaves of love?

Gary D. Grossman
Chewers by Masticodores,
4 March 2025