Our Sunday Night Swagger Writers Group has decided to post poems from a prompt on the first Friday of the month. Last month Heidi Mordhorst challenged us to definito poems. This month Catherine Flynn prompted us to write about a box:
- Who was the owner of the box?
- How did what is inside the box transform him or her?
Having acquired some things from my parents’ home this summer, I knew what box I would write about. My grandmother whom I called Nene died when I was young, between 8 and 10. I remember so much about her, her white-white hair, how she sewed beautiful Barbie clothes and even made doll furniture from cardboard, and how she loved butterflies. She had a pinned collection in a shadow box. But that isn’t the box of this poem. I had never seen this box before. It was tucked inside a cardboard box of mementos from my father’s childhood.
(draft) Margaret Simon
This is Her Box
that touched her hands
so many years ago.
A small brass box
that fits in the palm of my hand.
What did these things
mean to her?
a tarnished silver spoon,
jeweled pin,
wire-framed butterfly,
silver post earrings–
I put on the charm bracelet;
Grands’ names in birth order
become my connection to her.
All tucked into her box
for me to find
fifty years later
and remember
her touch.
See other box poems from my writer friends:
Catherine Flynn: Reading to the Core
Molly Hogan: Nix the Comfort Zone
Heidi Mordhorst: My Juicy Little Universe
Linda Mitchell: A Word Edgewise
Reflections on the Teche 