My Father’s Shirts
Early mornings, I woke to the creak
of the ironing board, the smell of hot cotton,
my mother humming “O, Sole Mio,”
as she hurried to iron a clean white shirt
in time for my father to wear to work.
Unrolling the dampened ball of cotton,
she licked her finger and tested the heat
of the iron. When it sizzled, she lifted it,
pressed hard on the shirt’s collar,
front side and back, then the cuffs,
inside and out, the yoke,
the plackets, with their buttonholes
and tightly sewn buttons,
the shirt front and finally the back.
She would carry it to the bedroom
where my father was dressing.
Year after year after year,
the old wooden board
in the kitchen, the same bottle
with a perforated top
for extra water, the same song.
And when my father’s hands began to shake,
when the disease made him falter and stop
halfway across the room,
when his fingers
could no longer twist and fit the buttons
into their holes,
she sewed the buttonholes closed
added Velcro behind them for fastening.
Shirt, after shirt, after shirt.
About the Author: Ruth Bavetta writes at a messy desk overlooking the sea. Her poems have appeared in North American Review, Nimrod, Rattle, Slant, Atlanta Review, Tar River Poetry and many other journals and anthologies. She likes the light on November afternoons, the music of Stravinsky, the smell of the ocean. She hates pretense, prejudice, and sauerkraut.
Image Credit: Edgar Degas “Woman Ironing” Public domain image courtesy of Artvee
As It Ought To Be 